Parts of South still underwater after historic flooding
LOUISIANA -- In the U.S., parts of the South remain under water.
Flood watches and warnings continue on Sunday night. Nearly a week of relentless rain has left six people dead -- most of them in Louisiana
Seventy-eight-year-old Harold Worsham had just recovered items from his flooded mobile home when the boat he was in capsized. Worsham drowned.
He was deacon at a nearby baptist church.
"They shouldn't have been out here," his son Kenneth Worsham said. "They were coming in here when the water was just a little too rough to handle."
In the pace community of Natchitoches Parish, crews are scrambling to stop floodwater from the nearby Black Lake.
In Bossier Parish, flood water is dropping. Crews are winning the fight against Red Chute Bayou, which was threatening to overflow a levee. The mandatory evacuation order here has been lifted.
"Literally the sandbags are holding the water back," said Bossier Sheriff Julian Whittington. "If it not were the sandbags, it would be topping the levee."
About 26 percent of Louisiana's river gauges are still in some level of flooding.
Initial reports show as many as 5,000 homes received flood damage.
In southeast Louisiana, Covington authorities called for a voluntary evacuation of communities near two major cresting rivers.
"The rivers are rising and they're rising at historical proportions," said Mayor Mike Cooper.
For Jeri Minge and her family, river waters came close to their new home. They spent the entire day clearing out.
"We have a sump pump," she said. "We moved all the low stuff up. Moved the cars, that's about all we can do."
"Absolutely frightening. It's one thing for it to be you know, high, but just to see the flow and the motion there, definitely scary," said Sherry Felder, another resident.
Back in central Louisiana, in Natchitoches Parish, giant sandbags are holding water from the Saline bayou, but is flowing through a culvert below toward the community of Clarence. About a mile away, the water is nearing the top of the levee.