High Water in Louisiana Breaking All Records

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morganza_Spillway

Here is a Spillway I haven’t told you about.

Click on the link to read the info about Morganza.  Morganza is to the north and west of us while the Bonnet Carrie is due east of us toward New Orleans.  They both were constructed to take the pressure off the levee system below the structures.

We are going down to the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge tomorrow to take some photos of the Water levels now.  And as we speak, there are storms in the states north of us and horrendous flooding all along the Mississippi.

We are not in any danger here at this time.  Just to let you know.  But it still all makes me uneasy.

The Morganza Spillway was built in 1954, the year I was born. They are opening it in one week.  The delay is because a barge will be sunk near the Spillway inundation point and a dam constructed that will attempt to keep a populated area of the zone from flooding.

The Mississippi River has been over Flood stage for more time now than at the 1927 flood. The 1927 flood inundated so many communities and spurred the development of the levee system in South Louisiana. The 1927 flood is the big one that everybody talks about.

The Morganza Spillway is above Baton Rouge along State Highway 1. It contains 125 floodgates, a concrete weir, two sluice gates, seventeen scour indicators.  When the Mississippi River reaches a flood stage of 57 feet at the structure it can be opened by a decision of a group of residents, state officials and Corps of Engineers.  The area is sensitive because it is a very large area with camps and abundant wildlife.  They will open a combination of bays they will flood the area one foot per day depth to allow residents and wildlife to flee before they get caught. No person should be living in the area. The camps are only recreational.  But you know that there will be the idiots who don’t follow rules.

What is a scour indicator you ask?  Scour indicators are automated instrumentation placed near and around a bridge’s foundations to measure the damage to the structure.  I had to look that up.

Of note is that the Bonnet Carre Spillway is still open just below Baton Rouge.  Currently it has 168 of the 250 gates open.

The determination to open either structure is based upon the cubic feet per second of water passing the structure.  The  Morganza structure has only been open twice:  in 1973 and 2011.  Unfortunately op opening the structure and the crawfish season Since many of the crawfish fields are in that area. Remember when I showed you photos of the crawfish field when I went up to talk to the guild in Cottonport. We passed over the Morganza structure at that time I probably have some pictures of it, i have to see.