{"id":192612,"date":"2019-08-04T07:43:10","date_gmt":"2019-08-04T07:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=192612"},"modified":"2019-08-06T07:18:24","modified_gmt":"2019-08-06T07:18:24","slug":"this-us-heartland-has-been-flooded-for-five-months","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=192612","title":{"rendered":"This US heartland has been flooded for five months."},"content":{"rendered":"

Rory Doyle \u2013 The Guardian Aug 3, 2019<\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Pleasant Grove Baptist Church in Issaquena county. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

Dating back to late February, about 550,000 acres of land have been underwater in the rural Yazoo backwater area of the lower Mississippi<\/a> delta. About half of the acreage is farmland, creating devastating effects in a region where agriculture is the lifeblood of the economy. While flooding in the region is common, this year\u2019s floodwater has hung around longer than ever.<\/span><\/p>\n

Carmen Hancock, James Hancock and Rodney Porter have spent the past five months helping their elderly neighbors survive in their homes surrounded by floodwater. \u201cWe\u2019re living by the good Lord to do what\u2019s right,\u201d said James Hancock. \u201cThere\u2019s a number of older people living in this neighborhood, and it\u2019s just the right thing to do. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. That\u2019s what I live by. You do what has to be done.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Carmen Hancock, James Hancock and Rodney Porter boat down a flooded road near their homes in Valley Park, on 16 July. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

Compounding the problem was a high Mississippi River, which remained near or above flood stage for the longest span since 1927. The perfect storm of historic rainfall and a high river resulted in a backwater flood that has lingered beyond anything the region has ever seen.<\/span><\/p>\n

Only within with the past couple weeks has the water receded, and for the first time in nearly half a year, farmers are finally beginning to see their land re-emerge.<\/span><\/p>\n

Threat to wetlands and wildlife<\/h2>\n

Efforts to prevent flooding in this region date back to 1941 when Congress approved the Yazoo Backwater Project. The multifaceted plan included a system of levees, canals and drainage structures. But one crucial element was never installed \u2013 drainage pumps that would push floodwaters out of the backwater area and eventually into the Mississippi River. Due to construction delays, the pumps were never built, and in 2008, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) vetoed the pumps, citing a threat to wetlands and wildlife in this remote part of Mississippi.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Mack Shorter on his flooded farmland in Fitler, Mississippi, on 27 July. \u2018We were hearing that Hurricane Barry was going to drop 10in of rain here, and if it did, the water would have got in my house,\u2019 said Shorter. \u2018We\u2019re blessed enough that didn\u2019t happen. It\u2019s a lot of stress.\u2019 Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018I\u2019ve never seen anything like this\u2019<\/h2>\n

The 2019 flood has caused the EPA to review its veto decision, giving hope to many residents that the pumps will finally be installed. Situated in one of Mississippi\u2019s most rural locations, most residents feel they have been left out of the national conversation about flooding in America.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBecause no one\u2019s died from this, and we live in such a remote place, it doesn\u2019t seem to be important to national news,\u201d said Paul Hollis, a farmer from Rolling Fork and a local commission for the Mississippi levee board. \u201cWe want people to know how many acres of farm land are flooded, how many houses are destroyed and how much wildlife has been impacted by this.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Farmland in the lower Mississippi Delta remains submerged in floodwater. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Flooding in the Mississippi delta threatens to turn half-a-million acres farmland into semi-permanent wetland <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-192612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Behind_The_News","category-Current_Affairs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=192612"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":192619,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192612\/revisions\/192619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=192612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=192612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=192612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}