Eagle Lake residents will be forced to use a narrow, gravel levee road familiar to them beginning Wednesday when the Mississippi River tops the main highway providing access to the community in northwest Warren County and other traffic to the area will be restricted.

The Mississippi River

Today’s stage: 45.9 feet

24-hour change: +.3

Crest forecast: 47 feet on May 23

Flood stage: 43 feet

The notice comes a day after the predicted river crest at Vicksburg was raised by another foot — to 47 feet, which is 4 feet above Vicksburg flood stage. The crest is expected in Vicksburg Saturday, according to the Lower Mississippi River Forecast Center in Slidell, La. Peter Nimrod, Mississippi Levee Board Chief Engineer, said the Yazoo Backwater Levee will be opened to local traffic as soon as Mississippi 465 is closed — which typically occurs when the river reaches 46.5 feet.

The new crest also focuses attention on cropland in the levee-locked Yazoo Backwater Area where water will rise a foot higher than previous predictions before being allowed to drain. The new forecast in the impounded area matches last year’s levels, but comes much later in the planting season.

This morning, the river was at 45.9 feet, a rise of .3 feet in a 24-hour period.

The levee road was forced to handle Eagle Lake traffic for more than a month last spring, as flooding forced Mississippi 465 closed from April 4 through May 6. Heavy trucks will not be allowed on the levee road, said Nimrod, and will have to use Low Water Bridge Road or Mississippi 1 at Onward to access the Eagle Lake community in northwest Warren County. Last year, proof of address checkpoints were established to keep sightseers and other vehicles off the levee road. It wasn’t known if that would be done this year.

Eagle Lake has nearly 600 full- or part-time residences, and the oxbow lake is a favorite boating and fishing spot in warm months.

Approximately 4 inches of rainfall over the weekend pushed up the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ forecast crest for the water stage inside the 4,093 square miles of land north of Vicksburg known as the Yazoo Backwater. The gates of the Steele Bayou control structure off Mississippi 465 — the lone drainage point for the backwater area — were closed on May 10.

As of this morning, Steele Bayou was holding about 3.4 feet of river water out of the impounded area, as the land side stage was 91.8 feet and the river side stage was 94.3 feet. The gates cannot be reopened until the land side stage is higher than the river side stage. Without any additional rainfall, the Corps estimates the landside stage will top out at 92 to 92.5 feet at the end of the month, said Robert Simrall, Corps chief of water control.

“We’re going to be very close to what we saw last year,” Simrall said this morning.

In 2008, Steel Bayou was closed on March 13 and reopened on May 8, at which point the water stage inside the structure was 92.3 feet and the Corps estimated a total of 344,000 acres of forest and farmland were flooded. Drainage came in time for planting and a near-normal crop season. That may not be the case this year.

The river forecast was raised Monday due to heavy rainfall over the Ohio River Valley, said David Ramirez, hydrologist with the LMRFC. As a result, the allowed outflow of the Kentucky and Barkley dams in southern Kentucky has been increased.

The river topped flood stage at Vicksburg last year on March 29, crested at 50.9 feet on April 21 and remaining above flood stage until May 10. It was the highest measured river stage recorded at the city in 35 years, dating back to 1973 when the river topped out at 51.6 feet. Although this year’s crest will be much lower, the effect on crops inside and outside the impounded area will be greater. Corn is considered late when not planted before now. Cotton and soybean crops can be planted later in the growing season, but even after draining, fields will need to dry out before they can be worked.

For decades, the Army Corps of Engineers proposed pumps to move the water out of the impounded area and into the mainstream, but the latest version of the plans were vetoed by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2008.

The City of Vicksburg on Monday received funds from federal and state emergency management agencies to complete the buyout of 16 homes in repetitive flood plains north of the city, primarily in the Ford and Waltersville subdivisions. The homes were among 101 in the city that emergency management officials estimated took on water last year. Seven homeowners in the county, including some who formerly lived on Mississippi 465, are still waiting to receive checks through the federal buyout program.

Due to increased currents, the U.S. Coast Guard last week restricted barge traffic. Southbound tows are allowed to pass beneath the bridges at Vicksburg only during daytime hours. Five barge tows struck support piers on the U.S. 80 bridge in a 40-day span during last year’s flood.

South of the city, LeTourneau Road remains open. It was topped and closed last year at about 48 feet, causing a five-week layoff of 1,100 LeTourneau employees as the riverside oil rig manufacturer was forced to run on a skeletal crew.

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Contact Steve Sanoski at ssanoski@vicksburgpost.com