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Obama Meeting Residents in Mississippi Flood Zone

   VOA News  May 16, 2011
   President Barack Obama greets well wishers upon arrival in Memphis,
   Tenn., where he met privately with families affected by flooding, and
   delivered the commencement address at Booker T. Washington High School,
   May 16, 2011

Photo: AP

   President Barack Obama greets well wishers upon arrival in Memphis,
   Tenn., where he met privately with families affected by flooding, and
   delivered the commencement address at Booker T. Washington High School,
   May 16, 2011

   U.S. President Barack Obama is visiting the southern state of Tennessee
   to speak to graduates and show support for residents affected by major
   flooding along the Mississippi River.
   Obama arrived Monday in Memphis, Tennessee, to meet with displaced
   families, local officials, emergency responders and flood relief
   volunteers.
   Later in the day, Obama delivers a commencement address to 150
   graduating high school seniors. The Booker T. Washington school earned
   the presidential address by winning a White House contest that invited
   public high schools to show how they prepare seniors for college and a
   career.
   The winning school has reported a major increase in graduation rates -
   from 55 percent in 2007, to almost 82 percent in 2010.
   Last week, the Mississippi River crested at near record levels in
   Memphis. Some low-lying neighborhoods were inundated, but the city's
   levees largely protected other parts of the city.
   As the floodwaters moved downstream, authorities opened floodgates in
   rural parts of Louisiana for the first time in four decades to ease the
   pressure on levees protecting the state's major cities of Baton Rouge
   and New Orleans.
   The gradual opening of the floodgates threatens to inundate thousands
   of homes in Louisiana's Cajun country region, where many residents were
   evacuating to higher ground. Waters were rising Monday in parts of the
   lowland.

   Some information for this report was provided by AP and Reuters.

   

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