Photo: The News Star
The Mississippi River is again flooding about 8,500 acres of farmland in East Carroll Parish’s Bunches Bend, which suffered a spectacular levee failure during the Great Flood of 2011 that wiped out $10 million in crops planted there then.
Producers have since repaired the original breach on the northern end of the levee through a special taxing district, but a gap remains on the southern end of the ring levee, which is where the rising river is depositing water again.
Some of the eight producers who farm within the bend planted corn and some early soybeans in March when the river forecast remained low.
“Water was already coming in Monday,” said Ted Schneider, who said he had a beautiful 430-acre stand of corn before the flooding began. “When the river reaches 42 feet (sometime next week) everything will be under water.”
The river is forecast to crest at 43 feet at Vicksburg, Miss., on May 15, right on the nose of flood stage.
The News Star has the full article
