NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Search-and-rescue teams are stationed at three places in Mississippi in preparation for torrential rainfall from Tropical Storm Barry as it pushes north from the Gulf of Mexico.

Mississippi Emergency Management Agency spokesman T.J. Werre said Friday the teams are on the Gulf Coast, at Camp Shelby military base near Hattiesburg and in Pike County in the southwestern part of the state near the Louisiana state line.

The coast is expected to receive tidal surge and the southwestern part of the state is expected to see the heaviest rainfall from Friday to Sunday.
About 550,000 acres in the rural Mississippi Delta, north of Vicksburg, has been flooded for months — much of it, farmland. Werre says the storm could exacerbate that problem as it moves north along the Mississippi River.

More than 120 children from across the U.S. attending a summer program at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge have been evacuated to Texas amid concerns about flooding as Tropical Storm Barry approaches Louisiana’s coast.

A Rice University statement says the middle and high school students were brought by bus overnight to the campus in Houston and arrived around 4 a.m. Friday.

The students are part of three-week Duke University program for high-achieving students. Rice officials offered to help, citing its availability of campus housing and proximity to Baton Rouge. Both cities are along Interstate 10.

Parents were given the option to pick up their children from LSU, but students attend from across the country.

Rice officials also say the campus of the private school would be available for the evacuated students to finish their course if significant flooding happens in the Baton Rouge area.