Vicksburg police began rerouting truck traffic on both ends of Washington Street to U.S. 61 North Monday, to prevent them from using the street as city and county officials prepare for high water from a predicted 52.5-foot crest on the Mississippi River.

“We have blocked North Washington at the intersection of Haining Road (southbound), and on South Washington by Braxton Street at the (Ameristar) casino (northbound), letting the drivers know they will have to use the Highway 61 North Bypass,” Police Chief Walter Armstrong said Monday at the city’s high water committee meeting. Only local deliveries will be allowed past the detours.

“We want to keep trucks from going farther into town,” Armstrong said. “We will also be putting up barricades on the side streets across the tracks where there’s water in the Kings Community.”

He said after the meeting he may consider removing the detours on Washington Street depending whether floodwaters reach North Washington.

The committee of city and county officials was organized by Mayor George Flaggs Jr. to deal with the flooding from the projected crest.

Armstrong said officers patrolling in Kings near Pittman Road and Jackson Lane were beginning to see water crossing the roads, “However, there is none in anyone’s yards.”

Besides discussing the truck traffic, the committee also discussed cutting power to the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad Depot and seeking help from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers with protecting the depot and checking the integrity of a makeshift levee in the Green Meadow Subdivision area off U.S. 61 South that was built during the 2011 flood using abandoned railroad tracks.

The Board of Mayor and Alderman and the Warren County Board of Supervisors approved joint resolutions supporting assistance for the depot and the levee. The resolutions include a letter from Flaggs to Mississippi Emergency Management Agency director Robert Latham Jr. seeking the state’s help in getting the Corps to assist the city and county.

“Hopefully, they will get the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers involved in looking at the railroad bed and determining if there are any deficiencies we need to correct down there to hold the water back,” City Attorney Nancy Thomas said.

“Also in determining if anything can be done to protect the depot.

“This is to let the public know that we’re going to do we can to protect that structure, especially since the city and MDOT (Mississippi Department of Transportation) have invested so much money in that building.

“The problem is, as the river rises, the water comes up through the basement. It’s not necessarily flooded from the outside; it’s flooded from the inside.”

The flooded depot served as the background for national television news reports on the flood broadcasts from Vicksburg.

In 2011, water from the spring flood put four feet of water in the depot, which at the time was undergoing a $1.5 million renovation funded by a $1.65 million Mississippi Department of Transportation grant and $250,000 in stimulus funds. Flood damage repairs cost the city about $56,000.

The board in 2014 approved a $521,844 project to repair ornamental woodwork and 48 windows at the depot affected by age and weather funded in part by a state grant that covered 80 percent of the project with the city paying the remaining 20 percent, or $104,369.

Power has been cut off to the building so city crews can extend the floodwall, and Vicksburg Main Street, the Vicksburg Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Old Depot Museum have completed moving displays and equipment out of the building. Main Street and VCVB have been relocated to the City Hall Annex.

David Benway, director/curator of the Old Depot Museum, said all displays have been moved either to the second floor of the depot or put in storage to some of the displays from mildew.

“We’ve had a lot of help from our staff and volunteers who came in to help us,” he said.

“Now we’ll have to wait and see. We’ll have to keep an eye on the second floor.”

In the southern part of the city off U.S. 61 South, the levee in Green Meadow Subdivision was built in 2011 along an abandoned railroad bed that runs parallel to the highway, after residents and businesses in the area were concerned holes where culverts were removed near abandoned rail tracks off Short Street would make the flooding even worse.

Private business owners and residents assisted by the Warren County Road Department and city equipment elevated parts of a mile-long section of the abandoned rail line behind the neighborhood about two feet to hold back the flood.

The city and county boards want to ensure the work is still in sufficient shape to prevent flooding if water reaches that area.

In other matters before the committee:

• Public Works Director Garnet Van Norman said work on the floodwall should be completed by the end of the week.

He said the railroad tracks north of the completed wall will be removed Wednesday.

• Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace said deputies will be on patrol in the county and the sheriff’s department’s boat will be available for use in flooded areas.

He said he and Armstrong have discussed plans to work together during the flood.