Mississippi River Is Very Low Now

Please click on the photos to make them larger.  It helps me create the post with the smaller photos.  Gotta love Blogger!

I had lunch with Diana and Gwen at Elsie's Plate and Pie.  OMG!  We had seafood and chicken pot pies and two kinds of each, coconut cream, cherry, almond joy and chocolate.  Oh, My!  Can you say "gain 3 lbs dinner"?

So after lunch Frank brought me to the Mississippi River to shoot some photos of the river levels.  I was really shocked to see how low the river is now.

I took a photo of Frank standing down at the river's edge on the batture area and looking up to give you some perspective.  I was on top of the levee above those letters.  Finally, you get to see the letters!









I asked him to run back down the levee to take a photo of the letters.  They are really huge letters on the cemented area of the levee.  Here all you can see is the Rouge part of Baton Rouge.







And to give you a perspective view of how large the letters are, Frank is standing on the river batture looking up to me at the top of the E.  Can you see me way up there. That is a distance of about 42 feet.







Here is the April 2019 level showing the top bar of the E letter.  you can see the very top of the levee where I was standing yesterday in the photo below.

Here is the shot I have been taking of the flooded river showing the height of the water in relation to that E.  The city workers were power washing the steps when we were there and they have washed the evidence of the water levels on that E.  If you remember, the water was in the middle of the top bar of the E.  If you can make out the white markings on the cement just above the E, it is telling us that that is 42.8 feet.







We walked down the levee about a half mile to check out the Paperclip Landing and the USS Kidd, our WWII Destroyer Museum.  IF you remember the Paperclip had water up to near the bottom of that first level.  That is where the American Queen and Mississippi Belle steam ships that tour the River dock for the Baton Rouge tours.  We like to go down and talk to people coming off the steamboats. You can see the  walkway down to the second level at flood stage in April 2019 in the photo below

Here is the USS Kidd back in April 2019 when the River was at its highest.  It was completely floating and held in by the cradle positioned on the side we can't see.  

Here is a great view of the cradle.  It is basically a post pylon with a sheet of metal with a hole it in threaded on the posts.  The metal is attached to the  side of the destroyer.  The Kidd floats freely up and down the post as the river level changes.  This allows the Kidd to float up as the water rises and drop into a stationary cradle when the water level goes beyond the underside of the ship.

And here is the view of the batture around the Kidd.

In the shots from April2019 the water was to the 4th step on the cemented area of the levee.  

Hope you have enjoyed the photos over the last few years.  We are fascinated with the Mississippi River beauty and activity.  And keep in mind, there is no connection the localized flooding we experienced in 2016 and the river levels.  The Mississippi River does not flood Baton Rouge.  We flood from the smaller tributaries  being overwhelmed by rains.  

So that is your Natural History Lesson for today!

Sawyer is 2 and the River is High

Carbon Spot is

quilted and has the binding on it. Now I need to sit in front of the TV and sew it down.

Yesterday was Sawyer's second birthday!  We were at Diane's house in Addis for a crawfish and a party for the kid.

 I gave him the Board I made with all the chains, locks, switches, plugs and levers on it.  I haunted Habitat for Humanity Resale store and Harbor Freight to get all the pieces to put on it.

As cool as this was, Jason gave him a bubble blower...….he LOVED it of course!


I took this photo from the Mississippi River Bridge I have shown you in photos standing on the levee.  You can see the flooded area between the levee and the trees where grass usually is.  If you see the green roof, that is the walkway to the casino and just beyond it, the white object is the American Queen Riverboat that came in mid afternoon Friday.

We went down to the River Saturday morning and talked to several people from the riverboat and took photos of the letters in the levee.

The water is down about 6 feet this weekend.  Slowly going down, but still flooding!

Memorial Day - Losing Money and Gaining Fabric

Memorial Day is not the day to thank a soldier.  It is the day we spend remembering those who gave their lives in the service of this great country.  We used to go to the cemetery in Pearlington, MS and clean up the graves for the summer.  We went again the week before Halloween to clean up the graves for the annual All Saint's Day Visit in November.

On that side of my family they were Danish shipbuilders.  Just down from Logtown and Kiln, both of which they owned, they had a shipyard and would sail into the Gulf of Mexico to bring lumber down to Cuba.  And sugar would be brought back to be assayed by my (Great) Aunt Annie, the chemist.

I remember sitting in her side of the double shotgun house in New Orleans and folding the filters she used.  They were similar to what we now use as coffee filters.  I have pleated many a filter paper in my day.  And although it was forced labor, it didn't seem like work.  Unlike my other German Grandmother who forced me to sew sequins and beads on fancy dresses for the rich ladies who came to be fitted.  Aunt Annie was fun, and she had all those cats. 

It was the generation between me and them who saw their battle weary brothers brought home in flag draped caskets.  And Frank's brother Gene, who did three tours in Viet Nam.  He saw those too.

Those are the ones we remember this Memorial Day.  For without men like them, we would be in a very different place today.

Whew.

Now for fabrics.

I won the collection of hand dyes from Vicki Welsh this month!  Oh, is that marvelously incredible!

And I received a bit of COW  (and we all know how I do love me some cow) fabric from Joe Tulips.   She had a tiny scrap left from her fabulous barn you saw two weeks ago, and pulled my name from the group.  I think I know how these babies will be used.

An I received my box from the Cotton Robin.  Christa in Virginia must have been really inspired and finished up early!  I cannot show you this one, I won't open the box until they start to come home over at Cotton Robin.

But it will be interesting.  I sent a similar block around with my Modern Robin group and I can't wait to see how the two compare. 

We went with some friends down to the USS Kidd on the Mississippi River levee to walk.  And gamble our retirement away.  The Kidd is the 651st destroyer build by the US.  It was launched on Feb 28 1943 and served in WWII in the Pacific Fleet at places like Wake Island and Gilbert Islands.  the same places my dad was on the aircraft carrier the USS Saratoga.

My dad would talk about the kamikaze bombers he had seen, like the one that hit the Kidd off Okinawa.  38 men were killed. 

One of the duties of a destroyer was to pick up downed pilots.  The crew of the Kidd earned the nickname "Pirate Ship of the Seas" because they would "ransom" the pilots back to their ships for Ice Cream mix and fresh vegetables.

Kidd in 2010

At the museum there are two planes used in the war, this one is a
Ranger.  The Kidd is held in place by a structure, now submerged, that allows it to float in a cradle of sorts when the river is higher.  When the river is low, the Kidd sits in the cradle out of the water.

In Louisiana we cannot have land based casinos, unless you are Harrah's and make a special deal with New Orleans politicians.  Or are Native American.  But in the rest of the state, we have Riverboat Casinos.  The idea was originally that they would be in port and board people for 90 minutes.  Then they would cruise up and down the river for a few hours and then be in port for another 90 minutes.

That quickly changed when the advocates for not cruising convinced the legislature that rogue barges would break loose and hit unsuspecting gamblers, killing all involved.  So now they are just floating casinos.  I am here to tell you that if the barges break loose, it is no safer being moored than cruising!

There are two Riverboats in Baton Rouge, The Belle and Hollywood. You can see Hollywood up the river a bit on the right.

I lost my $20-ish in the Belle.

The levee wall in this area is designed so you can walk down to the water, or sit on it and sun.  We do have fireworks displays on the river since fireworks are illegal here too.

We have a lot of rules!



Here is a nice piece of driftwood, a tree really, caught in the piles of the structure we are standing on. 

And we can see the Greater Mississippi River Bridge just beyond the Riverboat. 
Hope you have enjoyed my little history lesson about my town.

Maye we can all get together and do a coordinated set of blog posts about something in our towns.  Like our favorite quilt shop!

AMAZING! Mississippi River footage

This is a link to the news broadcast that I appeared on talking about the Amazing Mississippi River.  My amazing friend Caroline and I went to lunch and checked out the Amazing Mississippi River.  On top of the amazing levee, there were lots of people who had come to see the amazing water.  And there were amazing news reporters from just about every station down there interviewing the amazing people.  And of course, they chose to interview Caroline and I.  The interview was about 15 minutes and I had some really amazing facts and incredible information to dispense.  But you see what they chose to put on the news.  Later Caroline said that it was amazing that we were on TV because there were a lot of amazing looking "younger" women out there who may have been more camera worthy. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFI1A_Ere5M

It was a good thing we went when we did because as the newscast aired the levee board stated they were closing the levee to pedestrian and bike people.  Signs and police everywhere threatened.  But like my amazing husband says, there is always a way around the rules.  So we took our money in hand and went to the casino!

You can see how much higher the water has gotten even since last week.  This is from the Casino parking.

This morning we parked in the casino parking lot, crossed the levee on the floating walkway to the casino boat you saw in the last post and sat down at some slot machines.  After about 20 minutes, our respective $20 is usually gone, but this Friday the 13th was lucky for us.  I left with $25 and Frank closed his machine out at $36 ahead.  So they paid us to look at the river from their boat.

We drove down the River Road toward LSU.  Word yesterday was that even if Morganza is opened LSU would receive some flooding.  Not good since the Vet School is the first building off the levee and in the basement they keep their infectious diseases.  Bad news I would suppose.  That is why there are no other basements in Louisiana, too much water pressure on the walls.  Do you see the leak in the Tiger Dam?  Scary?  LOL.  They are putting out these huge orangeTiger Dams along the top of the levees.  Just in the Baton Rouge area.  They have a pump on a golf cart thing and they fill the Tiger Dams with river water, drill holes in the levee walkway, lash the Tiger Dam down and pack sandbags around it to keep it from rolling.

 Driving down the levee, you could see the sand boils.  These are places where the river water is undercutting the levee and coming up on the dry side.  The Levee Board is monitoring all of these places.  And they have asked people to report new ones as they see them. 

They have appropriated prisoners from Dept. of Correctional Institutions (see the DCI emblazoned on the shirts of some of them?) to fill the sandbags at designated stations.  I guess it gives them useful busy work but they are right out there with not much supervision.  I am thinking they probably know NOT to run to the levee with all the policemen up there waiting to arrest citizens who might wander up there.  Just saying.

We drove further down the levee and I was able to go on top of it at a Diving place.  Their road is underwater and they are boating out to their office.  You can see in one of these pictures that the River Road is much lower than the level of the water.  And keep in mind that the Mississippi river is actually out beyond the Inland Diving office.

Mississippi River and Baton Rouge

Uss Kidd last weekend we rode the Mississippi River Levee on bikes to see what the water looked like.  And it was high.  I pulled some pictures from a few years ago and a pack dog hike from even further back so compare with the levels.  And we will head down there this weekend to see what has changed.
Frank keeps saying things like “historic” and “incredible” and “unbelievable”.  But I think it is, at this point anyway, just water under the bridge.

USS Kidd in April  2007               and May 2011
 
The USS Kidd is a WWII ship sitting in our port and open for tours.  In the 2007 photo you can see the levee wall way in the distance.  In 2011 the water is 1/2 way up the levee wall.  The Kidd sits in a floating frame so that at low water it is actually out of the water and sitting on the frame.
Here are more from various years:

2007  Mississippi River Bridge, we call this one the “New Bridge” even though it was built over 30 years ago.

The Mississippi River rises every year.  This year because of the record snowfalls and rain in the Ohio Valley we are getting more than usual.  This is the 2008 crest.  There is a structure used for the occasional river boat that comes along.  It used to fit the Natchez Queen, Delta Queen and the Mississippi Queen as they steamed up or down river between St. Louis and New Orleans.  But the companies went bankrupt about 8 years ago.
  These two are of the gambling Casino and the walkway to it.  In Louisiana we cannot have a land based casino, well except for the Harrah’s in New Orleans due to special dispensation from God.  But all others are floating.  And remember our illustrious Governor Edwin Edwards?  Well, they tried to get him on many things in his years in politics but the only thing that ever stuck was the fact that he sold the very last Casino Permit to his friends and he and his son got kickbacks.   This is the Belle of Baton Rouge Casino.  It was first required to leave port every 3 hours for at least 45 minutes but when it was determined that it might be dangerous due to the heavy river traffic they allowed it to stay in port.  You can see the water up to the batture, or grassy area of the levee but not on the cement levee wall.

You really can’t see exactly how high the river is here in April 2010.  This is Frank on the levee a bit further down from where the Casino is.  You still see the New Bridge.  The river is very wide, maybe close to a mile or more. 
And here is the walkway to the USS Kidd, high and dry in April 2010.





Here is the “Old Bridge” that was built in the 30s or 40s.  It is upriver from the New Bridge and still very much used.  The state opened the third bridge just up river in New Roads from the Old Bridge last week.  Previous to the newest bridge there were ferry crossings on the river but the flood covered the landing making the ferry inoperable.  My friend Plugga will be upset, he uses the ferries because he is afraid to cross the bridges.


This is the river now.  Those barges are actually on the river itself and the water is covering the batture between the river and the levee.  The herons are having a great time fishing in the shallows.  Frank is sitting on the sandbags they put at Main Street and River Road to bring the levee height up at that point because it is a road crossing.  There are several businesses on the batture side of the levee, mostly having to do with river stuff.  Or construction.  In the sandbag picture you can see how the street rises behind Frank.  Before the levees that was the actual river bed.  It has moved a bit in these thousands and hundreds of years.  And that is what it is trying to do again at the Old River Structure in Morganza.  Sound familiar?  Yes that is the structure they want to open that will send water down the Atchafalaya Basin.  Which is where the Mississippi River actually wants to go naturally.  The river is kept in is present course by man made structures.  Scary? 
I am standing on top of the levee for these photos.  There is maybe 5 or 6 feet to the top.  The levee has a temper.  It knocked Carrie right off her wheels!    This is the elevation mark on the levee top at Main Street.  The next one down read 42.8 feet.  And all sorts of debris are washing down river.  I can see someone’s house maybe, and a telephone pole?  Hope it is just a tree.
Here are the tugs waiting to be needed if river traffic gets into trouble with the fast current and rising waters.  More sandbags down the way.  My friend who is an engineer specializing in these things says those sandbags will never hold if the water gets that high.  It is simply to make people feel better.
This is a stop sign on the batture road. 
It is pretty sure they will open the Morganza Spillway.  It will flood out some 2500 people.  And while I am sorry they will lose their homes and land, I know the spillway was there before they were and they knew the risks of the opening.  The Federal Government will pay restitution for 4 years to the farmers and fishermen so I can’t feel too badly for them either.
I will be on the Bonnet Carre Spillway this Saturday heading to Destrehan to bring a bike to my vet cousin and son Matt.  I will try to get some pictures from that as well.  It is pronounced “Bonnie Carry”.

And the good thing about all this……..the fishing, crawfishing and shrimping will be bumper crops for the next couple of years.  Prices will be fabulous and that is the history of Louisiana for long before man set foot here.  The Mississippi River is not easily tamed.  And we still need to respect it for what it is, nature.