Coahoma County Coroner Scotty Meredith said the body of 34-year-old Marco McMillian was found on the Mississippi River levee Wednesday at about 10 a.m.

NPR: Homicide Suspected In Miss. Candidate's Death

He has another standing gig Thursday nights at Vaughan's, a ramshackle club near the Mississippi River levee in the Bywater neighborhood down the river from the French Quarter.

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The swollen Spoon River topped a levee and inundated the central Illinois town of London Mills, and about half of the 500 residents had to be evacuated.

NPR: Floodwaters Rising After Storms Deluge Heartland

In addition to the mainline levee along the river, starting near Vicksburg and extending northeast for more than 20 miles, a so-called backwater levee offers shelter.

CNN: Jindal: Morganza Spillway could open as early as Saturday

"We estimate that every home built on the river side of the levee from Memphis all the way to the Louisiana line is flooded, " said Mike Womack, executive director of the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency.

CNN: Jindal: Morganza Spillway could open as early as Saturday

The backwater levee is designed to keep water from backing into the Yazoo River delta and is designed lower than the mainline levee so that water can flow over it.

CNN: Jindal: Morganza Spillway could open as early as Saturday

Homes that were built between the levee and the Mississippi River were the first affected.

CNN: Jindal: Morganza Spillway could open as early as Saturday

Rogers says the levee breaks in New Orleans bear some similarity to the failure in 1986 of a levee on the Yuba River, south of Marysville, California.

NPR: Lawsuits Filed Over New Orleans Levee Breaks

Water is continuing to flood towns and land in northern Colombia where a levee along the Dique Canal that connects Cartagena Bay with the Magdalena River ruptured at the end of November.

BBC: Colombia flooding continues with thousands homeless