I was born and raised down in the Bootheel which was once the catch basin (AKA an uninhabitable swamp) for the Little River drainage.
More than a few people don’t know the Little River Drainage District project during early part of the 20th century was of massive proportions. More soil was dug and displaced than during construction of the Panama Canal. The hundreds of miles of smaller drainage ditches and levees cumulated in five or six large pararell ditches known as the Floodways, in which I did a lot of fishing as a kid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAKQIB2cYbM
The Floodways then drain into Big Lake AR. This video shows what all of the Bootheel country once looked like before the Little River Drainage District Project.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKuvIyc2PK0
When I was a kid, I swam in one of the floodways, it was also named “Wahite”, about half way between Morehouse and Gray Ridge.
Little River runs through Morehouse, where I was born and raised. Normally a small stream, it’s now out of its banks and Morehouse is being evacuated.
As I noted earlier, I’ve never seen Morehouse flooded before and I’m 65 years old. The river has been out of its banks before but usually it just puts standing water in the far west end of town. Now all sections of town are flooded.