Mississippi River Cresting Higher than Predicted

Officials monitoring river levels; don't expect it to overflow its banks by Jan Moller, The Times-Picayune Monday April 07, 2008, 7:54 AM BATON ROUGE -- State and federal officials said Sunday that they are continuing to closely monitor the rising water levels on the Mississippi River for possible flooding, but that they don't expect the river to overflow its banks. "This is a situation that changes nearly every day," Gov. Bobby Jindal said at an afternoon news conference at the state Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, where representatives of several federal and state agencies met to review emergency procedures. State emergency officials plan to issue daily updates as the river nears its expected crest of 17 feet in New Orleans on April 16. Last week, water levels were expected to peak at 16.5 feet on about April 7. The New Orleans river levees are designed to handle up to 20 feet of water.