VOA慢速英语:The Mississippi River Floods America’s Heartland

The Mississippi River flows down the middle of the United States to the Gulf 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.
密西西比河沿着美国中部流向墨西哥湾。现在，美国北部的融雪和暴雨正移向南部。结果造成有些人说的美国密西西比河沿岸80年来最严重的洪水灾害。

In Louisiana, engineers are working to keep floodwaters away from two big cities -- New Orleans and Baton Rouge. New Orleans is still recovering from the failure of its flood controls during Hurricane Katrina in two thousand five.
在路易斯安那州，工程师们正努力工作使洪水远离两个大城市——新奥尔良和巴吞鲁日。新奥尔良如今正从2005年卡特里娜飓风防洪失败中恢复过来。

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 Governor Bobby Jindal has been urging them to prepare to leave.
使水直接流入摩根萨溢洪道的计划意味着该州另一个地区的肥沃农田将被洪水淹没。多达25000人必须离开这些可能会被淹没的地区。路易斯安那州州长Bobby Jindal一直在催促他们做好离开的准备。

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.
摩根萨溢洪道上流离该州首府巴吞鲁日约75公里。这个溢洪道是一条32公里长的河道，它可以将密西西比河的水输送到其他水系。它只在1973年使用过一次。

Last week, the Army Corps 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.
上周，陆军工程兵在密苏里沿着土质堤坝炸出了一个直径3公里的洞。他们这样做是为了保护沿岸的另外两个州——肯塔基州和伊利诺斯州。但最终还是有52000公顷农田被淹没了。

The American insurance industry says natural disasters have already caused five billion dollars in damage this year. A record number of tornadoes 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.
美国保险业称今年自然灾害造成的损失已经达到50亿美元。数量创纪录的龙卷风袭卷德克萨斯州至乔治亚州沿岸。这些风暴造成六个州200多人死亡。同时，德克萨斯州和俄克拉荷马州还经受了极端的干燥和狂风天气，造成森林大火。

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.
奥巴马总统打算周一对此次洪灾进行视察。他将访问孟菲斯市，田纳西州，密西西比河流经这些地方水域的水位在本周早些时候几乎达到纪录水平。

The river has been setting 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.
河水在密西西比州维克斯堡已经创下纪录。但是专家称，如果沿岸没有建堤坝，泄洪闸和其他防洪措施，情况会更加严重。这些从1927年就建立了，当时洪水造成1000多人死亡。

In North Vicksburg, friends and family members have been helping Joann Parks prepare to leave.
在维克斯堡北部，Joann Parks的朋友和家人帮助他准备离开。

AP
Flood waters invade the center of historic Vicksburg, Mississippi, where a famous Civil War battle took place. The town has suffered record flooding this spring
美国联合通讯社
洪水入侵了密西西比州有历史意义的维克斯堡中部，这里是著名的内战爆发的地点。这个城镇今年春天遭受了创纪录的洪灾。

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."
Joann Parks：“很多东西我们不得不带走。一些东西我不得不带走，另一些东西我不知道要存放在哪里。这很困难，我知道很多东西我们不能保存下来。”

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.
维克斯堡位于密西西比河和亚祖河的接壤处。内战时期，1863年这里爆发了一个重要的战争，使它如今依然是一个著名的景点。

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.
维克斯堡的水位预计下周某个时候将达到最高水平——17.5米。官员称该地区的1000所房子将被淹没。

Seventy-year-old Winston Holman has lived in Vicksburg all his life.
70岁的Winston Holman一生都居住在维克斯堡。

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."
Winston Holman：“我从没见过河水像现在这么高。而且我希望我不要再见到它这么高了。因为这样会使这里许多人和公司遭殃。”