This is W-X-P-G Delta News at 10. Welcome back to your Delta News at 10. Tonight we have a special sit down with emergency management director David Berford to get the latest details as the river rises. David, thank you for joining us. Thank you, Sasha. So first, is there anything important that citizens need to know right now? Yes. Next week, we're going to start doing some preparedness. We're going to see some measures. People are going to see some things they've probably never seen before around here. We're going to be sandbagging some critical facilities, building levies around some things. And that is just preparedness for the worst case scenario. We have to keep operating no matter what happens. So we have to take all the precautionary measures we can to make sure we can do that. And we asked a lot of the citizens and the viewers to email us any questions that they had. And they emailed quite a few questions. Some of the most common ones where it doesn't look like the water will rise past the predicted 64.5 feet. Well, I'm not an expert on that, but the river is one of the things we watch all the time, like we do the weather. And I just looked earlier and it looks like Memphis is cresting on the tent. So that means the fall is getting closer. So there's no indications from anybody we've talked to. Any of our sources that the crest is going to go up above 64.5. And is there anything that citizens should be doing now just to prepare just in case something happens? Yeah, people need to be doing what we ask them to do all the time really. And that's to have a disaster plan and a disaster supply kit. We stand a chance of being impacted by severe weather probably about six months out of the year. That's more of a concern for us really than this event right now. Hopefully this is going to be a once in a lifetime thing. Another question a lot of viewers had was will the levees be able to hold for the estimated eight to ten days? Well, that's a question nobody can answer, Sasha, because we're in a time now where we've never had this much water on the levee. So nobody knows that. From indications from back in 2008, we got up to 57.4 feet. The levee stayed there. It did its job. There were no significant issues. The sand balls. That's a natural occurrence when the water comes up on the levee. We board and coer mitigate those and get the water pressure equaled out on both sides of the levee. And like I say, there's the water's higher now than it's ever been. So we really don't know. But looking back on history back in 2008, the levee did what it was supposed to do. It held the flood water back. Okay. And hypothetically speaking, a lot of people have this question. How far east would water go if there was a breach in the levee? With that, we have to look back at 1927. The water went all the way to the heels basically. But the water was not deep. The water was not. It's not a fast rushing type of water. It's not a big wave that's going to come. The water just kind of creeps in when they have a breach in the levee. But again, we're not expecting that to happen. And will there be any seapatch? If there's no breach, will there be seapatch through the levee? Oh yes. That's already occurring. It's not to a degree that's going to cause any flooding. It's just small areas. They sandbag it and it holds the water. And like I say, it's a natural occurrence. We had a lot back in 2008 and they took care of them then and they're doing the same thing right now. And if an evacuation does happen, how will citizens know about that? How will the message get out to them that they need to evacuate and what should they do? We're going to push out a good bit of information next week on a mass evacuation. But right now what we do know is we will use the media, of course. We will use the NOAA weather radio and we'll also use the warning sirens here in the city of Greenville, the other cities and in the county. Basically there's two tones. The tone everybody's used to here and they've heard a lot lately is the steady tone as the siren rotates. There is another tone in there and it is a tone that goes up and down as the siren rotates. So we will use that as well. But again, we're going to have a lot more information on if you were to hear that, exactly what you need to do. But for right now people need to be prepared for any type of event. Have a plan, have your disaster supply kit, have your important papers, picture, sentimental things that you won't just pack them and have them ready to go. That's just, that's part of the where we live in is being prepared for any type disaster. Alright, well I want to thank you so much for being with us tonight. Thank you ma'am.