Extraordinary homemade dams holding back the Mississippi

We've all undertaken home improvements but these residents in flood-stricken Mississippi have had to embark on major construction projects just to protect their houses and livelihoods.
These homes in Vicksburg are all situated along the Yazoo River, a tributary of the overflowing Mississippi River, and their owners have surrounded themselves with tons of earth and sand.
With questions over whether the main levees that protect the area from floods would hold, these farmers took no chances and have so far saved their homes and crops from destruction.

The flooding, which has been ongoing since the last week of April, is expected to reach its peak in Vicksburg tomorrow.
However, temporary measures have not worked for everyone.

The flooding claimed its first life today, after an elderly man slipped while clinging to a fence and drowned before authorities could come to his aid.
Two firefighters on a boat patrol on Wednesday spotted Walter Cook, 69, holding on to the fence in chest-deep water. By the time they reached him, Cook was floating in the water.
The elderly man died overnight at River Region Medical Center in Vicksburg of 'hypoxic brain injury due to drowning,' the coroner stated.
Hypoxia is an abnormal condition resulting from a decrease in the oxygen supplied to or utilised by body tissue.

Vicksburg has seen the worst of the floods with the Mississippi River's height swelling to 56.3 feet at its highest point, eclipsing the record set in 1927.
Employees at Dirt Works, Inc, a cement production business in South Vicksburg, built a makeshift levee to protect the business but it burst on Monday.
The Yazoo River's Backwater Levee connects with the main Mississippi River levee, and with the Mississippi River overflowing the Yazoo River has been forced to top its banks where they meet, near Vicksburg. 
With heavy rains having left the ground saturated there has been widespread flooding along three million acres of farmland from Illinois to Louisiana along the Mississippi. 
Around 15 miles of the Mississippi River, which had been closed since Tuesday, has now been reopened with the region and the nation absorbing huge financial losses from the closure.

Some 600 boats use the river every day, transporting 500m tons of cargo, keeping the river closed for any length of time would potentially cripple local industries and dent the American economy.
Economic experts had warned earlier this week that the closure of the river could cost $300m a day.
The 15-mile stretch at Natchez in Vicksburg had been closed because waters were near the very top of the levee and it was feared wake from passing ships may cause the levee to breach.
But on Wednesday, forecasters lowered their expectation for how high floodwaters will get.
They are now predicting that the Mississippi River will crest at Vicksburg at 57.1 feet tomorrow, lower than recent predictions, and that if the water does go over the Yazoo Backwater Levee, it will be only a trickle.

taken from  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1388660/Mississippi-River-flooding-Residents-build-homemade-dams-saves-houses.html#ixzz1MtUM5sAU