Yazoo City - A slow migration is unfolding here as people and wild animals - hogs, deer and snakes among them - seek higher ground from the floodwaters rising inexorably along the Mississippi River and its tributaries.
© AP/Robert RayFloodwaters invade downtown Vicksburg on Wednesday. Historic Vicksburg, the site of a pivotal Civil War battle, has been one of the hardest hit cities. All along the river's path, residents are worried about the flood's impact on homes and farmland.
Brett Robinson drove slowly down River Road near his Yazoo City farm on Thursday, gazing out over corn fields now beginning to look more like lakes. He stopped his truck, pulled out a rifle and shot dead a wild hog swimming through his corn. He'll lose the crop anyway, but that hog could be a nuisance long after the water recedes.
"We lose a lot of crops to them," he said of wild pigs. "We can lose 40 acres in a night. They can give birth three times a year and have 15 in a litter."
Wild pigs multiply faster than farmers can deal with them. Yet the rising flood is driving them into the open, giving farmers an opportunity to kill them as wild animals seek higher ground.
Not far away, a raccoon clung atop a power pole, perched above several feet of water. Nearby, a snake swam through the inundated corn. Ants are seemingly everywhere and fish sought to swim against the current as water washed over a road.
