NATCHEZ — The quiet lapping of a rising Mississippi River means that the sawmill at J.M. Jones Lumber Company will fall silent this week.

“The foundation of the sawmill is 51 feet on the river, so the water is already above the foundation of our mill,” J.M. Jones Lumber Company Vice President Howard Jones said. “It’s not flooding us, but we know the water table is there, so we will shut down Monday and not operate for two weeks — when we run our mill, we vibrate the ground, and we can’t afford to do that with the water table at that point.”

Having to shut down the mill isn’t the only way the river has affected Jones Lumber, located at the base of the Natchez bluff near the county port.

When the river started rising and initial projections said the water would get to 60 feet the company hauled in 1,000 loads of dirt to build its levees — which were already shored up after the record-setting 2011 flood — to 65 feet before wrapping them in Visqueen and sandbags. The predicted crest has since been revised two feet downward.

“We felt like we could have held without doing anything, but we were concerned it might come up again,” Jones said. “The fact they have revised it down is great, but we don’t feel like we have wasted anything. At 58, that is the third-highest river ever, and for all this you hear about a 100-year flood or a 500-year flood, we get them every five years now.”

But preparedness has come with a cost, even before the mill shuts down.

“It affects business,” Jones said. “We had to shut one of our main roads off to build our levee, so it makes moving around very congested and difficult.”

Next door at the Natchez-Adams County Port, business has been able to continue as usual to this point.

Loading and unloading operations have been able to continue unabated, and the agricultural grain shipping market is in a lull, said Adams County Administrator Joe Murray, who serves on the port commission.

During the 2011 flood one of the liquid loading docks and a small building there were impacted by high water, but that has since been mitigated, he said.

“At a certain level — about 60 feet — they will have to build a levee across the railroad tracks to keep the water from coming into the port on the railroad near the Jim Marlow Bridge,” Murray said. “They don’t want to do that until they absolutely have to because that will stop rail cars from coming in. They’re going to keep monitoring the situation and hope that they keep lowering the crest where we don’t have to put that levee in.”

For the non-industrial business community, the biggest trouble seems to be communicating to the public that the flood hasn’t shut them down.

“We have had some tourism partners contact us from a couple of different locations, people with concerns about the water, who want to cancel are just kind of misinformed about the situation,” Natchez Convention and Visitor’s Bureau Spokesperson Jessica Cauthen said.

“Our hearts go out to all those affected — and to the strip Under-the-Hill, but for the most part we are high and dry.”

At Natchez Under-the-Hill, where one of the roadways in — D.A. Biglane Street — was closed, and the second, Silver Street, was re-routed for two-way traffic, businesses have largely been impacted because parking has been reduced, owner of The Camp Mike Wagner said.

“Business actually picked up a little bit, because people want to come down here and see what is happening,” he said.

Magnolia Grill Owner John Parks rode out the 2011 flood Under-the-Hill, and said he plans to keep the business open.

“We have had some people call and ask if we are still open, but the business has been about what you would expect for January,” he said. “We will remain open as long as the lift station holds up.”

The lift station in question lost its functionality in 2011 after floodwater entered a toilet line that hadn’t been properly capped in a small building associated with the Isle of Capri casino, Parks said.

Without running water, the businesses were forced to close for health and safety reasons.

The property owners have communicated that the problem that happened in 2011 has been addressed, Parks said.

“As long as the liner on that capped line holds up, everything should be OK,” he said.

On the Vidalia Riverfront, initial plans for a bigger flood fight were slowed Friday — though officials say they’re still monitoring the situation — after the revised crest fell to exactly the point at which water is known to enter the area.

But the medical and hotel businesses on the Riverfront want people to know that they’re still open and don’t have any plans to close, and that while access across levee structures has been restricted, using paved roadways across the flood control structures is still OK, said Dr. John White, a specialist with Riverpark Medical Center.

“As tricky as things are right now, people are going to be spooked anyway, and we are hoping this won’t interrupt business, especially since (the city) has plans to go to great measures to protect the businesses here,” White said.

“The main question has been, ‘What are you doing about the river?’ We haven’t had any patients yet who have asked us if we are going to be open. Mainly they are curious about, ‘Do you think the water is going to get over the edge of the riverwalk?’ No body really knows what is going to happen until we get that crest down here.”

While the work to build a temporary ring levee using Hesco baskets around the buildings was paused, the materials remain in place ready to be deployed.

The current crest prediction, if correct, means the river will be at its third-highest recorded level in history.

The highest — 61.95 feet — was recorded in May 2011, while the second highest, 58.04 feet, happened in February 1937.