NATCHEZ — Adams County’s flood fighters learned a few things in 2008, and those lessons have gone to good use this year.

When the river stood at this point — approximately 53.7 feet this morning — in 2008, J.M. Jones Lumber had gone out of the logging business and into levee building. The mill’s location at the end of Government Fleet Road is actually below the water level.

So this year, owner Lee Jones decided to be proactive.

“We spent a half million dollars of the bank’s money building a really good levee, and it’s showed up in that we have had very little seepage and very few problems,” Jones said.

There are some downsides, however.

“We have had to close off all of our culverts and close off some of our roads and build temporary levees,” Jones said. “But we would have had to do that anyway.”

Even with the success the levee has had thus far, Jones said he would spend Friday afternoon walking the eight-tenths of a mile structure to make sure it is holding.

“It doesn’t take but six inches by six inches of a break and there’s a breach and here comes the water,” Jones said.

At Natchez Under-the-Hill, the joint effort between the city and the Isle of Capri casino has paid off with flood-fighting success City Engineer David Gardner said he has never seen before.

That’s because this time the sandbag levee the Isle has built Under-the-Hill was built using the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers standard, Gardner said.

“It is much wider, stronger and sturdier than we have ever had,” he said.

And that means that the casino boat hasn’t had to be moved.

“We would really like to stay where we are, because if we don’t have to move the boat we can continue to maintain that levee,” Gardner said.

Moving the boat would breach the levee, bringing water into Silver Street and possibly impacting sewer service Under-the-Hill, he said.

“We have never done this at this (water) level, so we are venturing into new territory,” Gardner said. “If it works it may be what we do in the future.”

But even with the success of the levees, that hasn’t stopped rumors that the casino is closed, Isle of Capri General Manager Tony Scuderio said.

“People see the slow down signs and they turn around because they think we’re closed,” Scuderio said.

“We are still open, we are going to stay open and we want everybody to know that we are still open.”

The river is expected to crest at 54 feet Sunday.