VOA慢速英语2011--The Mississippi River Floods America’s

IN THE NEWS - The Mississippi River Floods America’s Heartland

This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.
The Mississippi River flows down the middle of the United States to the Gulf¹ of Mexico. Right now, melted snow and heavy rains from the north are moving south. The result has been what some people are calling the worst flooding in eighty years in states along the Mississippi.
In Louisiana, engineers are working to keep floodwaters away from two big cities -- New Orleans and Baton² Rouge³. New Orleans is still recovering from the failure of its flood controls during Hurricane Katrina in two thousand five.
A plan to direct some of the water into the Morganza Spillway means flooding rich farmlands in another part of the state. As many as twenty-five thousand people may have to leave areas that would be flooded. Louisiana Governor⁴ Bobby Jindal has been urging them to prepare to leave.
The Morganza Spillway is about seventy-five kilometers upriver from Baton Rouge, the state capital. The spillway is a thirty-two-kilometer-long channel that can take waters from the Mississippi to another river system. The spillway was used only once before, in nineteen seventy-three. 
Last week, the Army Corps⁵ of Engineers exploded a three-kilometer-wide hole along an earthen levee in Missouri. They did that to protect river towns in two other states, Kentucky and Illinois. But fifty-two thousand hectares of farmland were flooded as a result.
The American insurance industry says natural disasters have already caused five billion dollars in damage this year. A record number of tornadoes⁶ struck along a path from Texas to Georgia. The storms killed more than two hundred people in six states. At the same time, states like Texas and Oklahoma are experiencing extremely dry weather and high winds that have caused wildfires.
President Obama plans to inspect the flooding on Monday. He will visit Memphis, Tennessee, where the Mississippi River reached nearly record levels earlier this week.
The river has been setting⁷ records in places like Vicksburg in the state of Mississippi. But experts say the situation would have been far worse if not for the levees, spillways and other flood controls built along the river. These have been built since nineteen twenty-seven, when flooding killed more than one thousand people.
In North Vicksburg, friends and family members have been helping⁸ Joann Parks prepare to leave. 
JOANN PARKS: "It is just a lot of things that have got to go. Some of the things have got to go, some of the thing I don't know where we are going to store it. It's just hard, I know there is a lot of things we are not going to be able to save."
Vicksburg lies where the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers meet. There was an important battle there in eighteen sixty-three during the Civil War -- which still makes it a popular stop for visitors.
The waters at Vicksburg are expected to reach their highest levels -- seventeen and a half meters – sometime next week. Officials say one thousand homes in the area could be flooded.
Seventy-year-old Winston Holman has lived in Vicksburg all his life.
WINSTON HOLMAN: "I have never seen the river as high as it is right now. And I hope I never see it get this high again. Because, it is hurting a lot of folks around here and a lot of businesses."
And that's IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. To see pictures of the flooding, go to voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember.
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Contributing: Greg Flakus and Jeff Swicord

1 gulf   

n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂

参考例句：

• The gulf between the two leaders cannot be bridged.两位领导人之间的鸿沟难以跨越。
• There is a gulf between the two cities.这两座城市间有个海湾。

2 baton   

n.乐队用指挥杖

参考例句：

• With the baton the conductor was beating time.乐队指挥用指挥棒打拍子。
• The conductor waved his baton,and the band started up.指挥挥动指挥棒，乐队开始演奏起来。

3 rouge   

n.胭脂，口红唇膏；v.(在…上)擦口红

参考例句：

• Women put rouge on their cheeks to make their faces pretty.女人往面颊上涂胭脂，使脸更漂亮。
• She didn't need any powder or lip rouge to make her pretty.她天生漂亮，不需要任何脂粉唇膏打扮自己。

4 governor   

n.统治者，地方长官(如省长，州长，总督等)

参考例句：

• The governor was an expert at fencing with reporters.这位州长是搪塞新闻记者的能手。
• He was elected governor of the state of California.他当选为加州州长。

5 corps   

n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组

参考例句：

• The medical corps were cited for bravery in combat.医疗队由于在战场上的英勇表现而受嘉奖。
• When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。

6 tornadoes   

n.龙卷风，旋风( tornado的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Tornadoes, severe earthquakes, and plagues create wide spread havoc. 龙卷风、大地震和瘟疫成普遍的毁坏。 来自互联网
• Meteorologists are at odds over the working of tornadoes. 气象学者对龙卷风的运动方式看法不一。 来自互联网

7 setting   

n.背景

参考例句：

• The play has its setting in Vienna.该剧以维也纳为背景。
• Where and when a story takes place is called the setting.故事发生的地点和时间称为故事背景。

8 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。