in june latamala taylor, 13 weeks pregnant, and darrin wilson died, when their car lost control and sampg into the the -- and sank foo -- into the flood waters. something must be done. my colleagues might ask how can an area more than 11 times the size of washington, d.c. remain under water for nearly seven months? how could flood water swamp more than half a million acres of homes, businesses, highways, forests spanning six mississippi counties for so long. the answer is quite simple. similar to new orleans, a complex system of levees and floodgates constructed by the u.s. army corps of engineers protected the roughly 1,446 square mile yazoo back water area in mississippi. this levee system protects the areas when the mississippi river is high and the floodgates are closed. however, these same protections become the problem when the river is high, floodgates are closed and excess rainfall occurs. the interior creeks and rivers have no way to drain and the result is a bath tub-like effect. unlike new orleans and numerous federal flood control projects up and down the mississippi river, th