The entire city was evacuated during the 2011 Mississippi River Floods , after the Ohio River rose higher than the 1937 flood levels , with the possibility of 15 feet of water inundating Cairo . The United States Army Corps of Engineers breached levees in the Mississippi flood zone below Cairo in Missouri to prevent flooding in Cairo and other more populous areas further upstream along both the Ohio and Mississippi rivers
2011 Mississippi River Floods
2011 Mississippi River floods
Cairo, Illinois