Monday, April 23, 2012

The Mississippi River – Flood and Low Waters

  It is so drastic to see the differences in the River I live near.  The Mi2008 04 08 005ssissippi has long standing tradition of floods and low waters.  Towns and cities were often at the mercy of the raging waters until the levee system was built in the 1900's.  Now we seek to control the river for our 2008 04 08 008benefit, commerce - shipping and chemical plants.  By the time the water reaches New Orleans down river from us, the water is full of  chemicals from hundreds of plants along the river.  Many of these plants intake water to cool their processes and discharge back downstream changing the water temperatures.
2008 04 08 003 Such is progress and modern times.  Feast or famine, as they say.  Good and bad.
Here are pictures from the 2008 flood



Thesepilings in river are pictures from the recent flood May of 2011. This is next to the River Boat Structure we were on Sunday.    In fact, here it is on Sunday….. levee structure
Big difference!  See the trees caught in the bottom of the one on the right?  Those were some pretty large logs.




baton rouge sign
Here is the Baton Rouge sign on Sunday with Low Waters.  USS Kidd floats

And here it is during the 2011 flood in May last year. Well, I couldn’t find that photo, but the Kidd is on the other side of the River Boat Structure and those levee steps are the same height as the one by the Baton Rouge sign.  You couldn’t see the Baton Rouge on the levee because the water was too high anyway!
glen

No comments:

Post a Comment

I love to hear from friends! Thanks for leaving a message!