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 About 125 structures were flooded in hard-hit Alexander County,
the southernmost point in Illinois, where three families near one
breach stayed dry behind sandbag fortifications and private levees,
county board Chairman Chalen Tatum said.
The National Weather Service on Sunday canceled a flash flood watch
for Alexander and two other Illinois counties, where record or
near-record river levels have threatened levees.
Days of downpours totaling 10 inches or more in spots pushed the
Mississippi and smaller rivers over their banks in several states.
At least 31 people have died in Missouri, Illinois, Oklahoma and
Arkansas, most of them after vehicles drove into flooded areas.
Nine people have died in the Illinois flooding and a dozen counties
have been declared disaster areas there, said Patti Thompson,
spokeswoman for the Illinois Emergency Management Agency.
In Alexander County, officials knocked on more than 500 doors to
urge people to leave voluntarily, though many stayed, Tatum said.
The voluntary evacuation could run another four days and no injuries
or deaths have been reported, he said.
 "The levees have a lot of pressure on them," Tatum said, adding that
a breach two days ago in a levee west of Miller City in the county
has reached a quarter-mile wide. "We hope they hold, but I don't
want to bet someone's life on it."
Tatum said many more homes were affected by a flood in 2011 and
expressed frustration that already approved buy-outs of more than
100 homes and small businesses related to that flooding have been
stalled by an Illinois state budget impasse.
The Mississippi receded further from dangerous levels at St. Louis
and farther south at Thebes, Illinois, and Cape Girardeau, Missouri,
on Sunday, the NWS said.
Significant flooding was expected into mid-January along the
Mississippi River at points downstream, from Tennessee to
Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana.
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"I hope it's going to slow down," said Kristy Morgan, an assistant
manager of Little General Marathon Gas in Tiptonville, a small city
in the northwest corner of Tennessee.
"All I know is they have been working around the clock doing
sand-bagging," Morgan said of city and county personnel and
emergency agencies in the area.
The river is expected to crest at the moderate flood stage on
Thursday in Memphis, Tennessee, according to the NWS. In Louisiana,
where crests at some points along the river are not expected until
mid-January, officials are checking levees daily.
The river is expected to reach major flood stage from Arkansas City,
Arkansas, to Natchez, Mississippi, the NWS said. Islands and camps
inside the levee structures would be expected to flood, with some
backup flooding from rivers that flow into the Mississippi, the NWS
said.
Exxon Mobil Corp said its 340,000 barrel-per-day refined products
terminal in Memphis remained closed. On Friday the company decided
to shut the terminal, just south of downtown, as flood waters
threatened to inundate it.
(Reporting by David Bailey in Minneapolis, Erwin Seba in Houston and
Tim Ghianni in Nashville; Editing by Dan Grebler)
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