LSUDad Posted May 22, 2019 Share Posted May 22, 2019 I just got back from So La area. Way too much water. We have had the longest high water mark ever, for the Mississippi River, for continuous days. We need a North wind, taking this water out, we need a drought for about a month and a half. The folks need Prayers. Some talk of shutting down the town of Stephensville, this is a small town between Pierre Part and Morgan City. It’s just North Of Lake Palourde. This is the river gauge on Belle River. https://water.weather.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?wfo=lix&gage=ppal1&refresh=true Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSUDad Posted May 25, 2019 Author Share Posted May 25, 2019 Authorities to sink Bayou Chene barge, reducing Iberville Parish flooding if Morganza Spillway opens BY EMMA KENNEDY | EKENNEDY@THEADVOCATE.COM PUBLISHED MAY 24, 2019 AT 3:20 PM | UPDATED MAY 24, 2019 AT 5:06 PM Buy Now When is it used? The structure is used during emergency flooding to divert excess floodwater from the Mississippi River into the Atchafalaya Basin. When deciding to open the structure, the Army Corp of Engineer considers "current and projected river flows and levee conditions, river currents and potential effects on navigation and retaining walls, extended rain and stage forecasts, and the duration of high river stages." Specifically, the Corps considers opening the floodway when the river reaches 57 feet at the structure or when flows at the Red River Landing are predicted to reach 1.5 million cubic feet per second and rising. (Pictured above, workers close a gate in the Morganza Spillway in 2011.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSUDad Posted May 26, 2019 Author Share Posted May 26, 2019 Massive intentional flooding in Louisiana begins BY DEAN REYNOLDS MAY 14, 2011 / 9:05 PM / CBS/AP Only one of the 125, 10-ton steel floodgates on the 4,000-foot long Morganza Spillway in Louisiana was opened Saturday to prevent worse flooding downstream in New Orleans; a cautious first step to give everyone and everything a chance to flee. "We'll open one bay today. We'll open one or two tomorrow and then we'll open gates based upon the river conditions as they exist," said Col. Ed Fleming, New Orleans district commander of the Army Corps of Engineers. As the gate was raised, the river poured out like a waterfall, at times spraying 6 feet into the air. Fish jumped or were hurled through the white froth and within 30 minutes, 100 acres of what was dry land was under about a foot of water. Trending News Missing Hiker Found Weekend Weather Updates Trump Subpoenas Delayed Ex-Stan Lee Manager Arrested CBS News correspondent Dean Reynolds reports that the Mississippi is cresting now near Helena, Arkansas, over 250 miles north of the Morganza Spillway, so officials in Louisiana know they are in for a period of acute anxiety as they try to manipulate the third longest river in the world. "This is certainly going to be a marathon and not a sprint as we go through this tremendous, huge amount of water as it comes down," said Gen. Michael Walsh with the Army Corps. The situation is increasingly urgent, as the amount of stress on the entire flood-prevention system rises. Louisiana attempts to prevent another KatrinaVideo: How spillways protect citiesPhotos: Mississippi flooding Saturday's spillway maneuver is designed to ease the stress by diverting some of the Mississippi's flow away from the cities with their riverside industries and onto less populated rural areas. The choice of city over country was made last month when the Corps blew up a levee and flooded Missouri farms to save the city of Cairo, Illinois. In Louisiana now, 3 million acres - 3,000 square miles - will be flooded. It is a tide toward that is supposed to move well west of Baton Rouge and New Orleans. By Sunday, the Army Corps predicts the water will be about 25 miles south and a foot or more deep. By Monday, it will be 50 miles south. By Tuesday, the inexorable wave should reach Morgan City, a town of 11,000, where flood preparations have been under way all week. All told, up to 25,000 people in the new flood zone will be affected, including farmer Ted Glaser. "It's gonna be a hit. We're gonna change some lifestyles," Glaser said. What's more, this is Cajun country - a unique slice of Americana with a storied culture to go along with its soybeans and cornfields. Much of it is going under for weeks, or even months. "We're using every flood control tool we have in the system,'' Army Corps of Engineers Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh said Saturday from the dry side of the spillway, before the bay was opened. The podium Walsh was standing at was expected to be under several feet of water Sunday. The overall spillway operation could last several weeks. The Morganza Spillway is part of a system of locks and levees built following the great flood of 1927 that killed hundreds. When it opened, it was the first time three flood-control systems have been unlocked at the same time along the Mississippi River. By opening the floodgates on this spillway, the hope is to lessen pressure on the floodwalls down to the Gulf of Mexico and prevent a catastrophe. Officials say the move will ease pressure on levees protecting New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and oil refineries and chemical plants downstream. They haven't opened the spillway at Morganza, La., since 1973, but with the river still rising, they have to do it again. "Protecting lives is the No. 1 priority," Army Corps of Engineers Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh said at a news conference aboard a vessel on the river at Vicksburg before the spillway was opened. Portable dams are also being placed on top of the levees in Baton Rouge, said Reynolds. It is hoped that maneuvering the spillway will keep the river navigable; the last thing anyone wants is to close the river to barge traffic. Engineers feared that weeks of pressure on the levees could cause them to fail, swamping New Orleans under as much as 20 feet of water in a disaster that would have been much worse than Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The Corps employed a similar cities-first strategy earlier this month when it blew up the levee near Cairo, Illinois, inundating an estimated 200 square miles of farmland and damaging or destroying about 100 homes, with damage that will probably exceed $100 million. This intentional flood is more controlled, however, and residents are warned by the Corps each year in written letters, reminding them of the possibility of opening the spillway. The spillway can have a flow rate of 1.5 million cubic feet per second. Just north of the spillway at Red River Landing, the river had reached that flow rate, according to the National Weather Service. To put things in perspective, corps engineer Jerry Smith crunched some numbers and found that the amount of water flowing past Vicksburg, Mississippi, would fill the Superdome, where the National Football League's New Orleans Saints play, in 50 seconds. This is the second spillway to be opened in Louisiana. About a week ago, the corps used cranes to remove some of the Bonnet Carre's wooden barriers, sending water into the massive Lake Pontchatrian and eventually the Gulf of Mexico. That spillway, which the corps built about 30 miles upriver from New Orleans in response to the flood of 1927, was last opened in 2008. May 9 marked the 10th time it has been opened since the structure was completed in 1931. The spillways could be opened for weeks, or perhaps less, if the river flow starts to subside. In Vicksburg, Miss., Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace said at least five neighborhoods have taken on water. "We're patrolling subdivisions by boat," Pace said Friday. U.S. Highway 61, a major north-south route has been cut off by water, affecting thousands of people, Pace said. Meanwhile, farmers along the lower Mississippi had been expecting a big year with crop prices skyrocketing, but now many are facing ruin, with floodwaters swallowing up corn, cotton, rice and soybean fields. In far northeastern Louisiana, where Tap Parker and about 50 other farmers filled and stacked massive sandbags along an old levee to no avail. The Mississippi flowed over the top and nearly 19 square miles of soybeans and corn, known in the industry as "green gold," was lost. "This was supposed to be our good year. We had a chance to really catch up. Now we're scrambling to break even," said Parker, who has been farming since 1985. More than 1,500 square miles of farmland in Arkansas, which produces about half of the nation's rice, have been swamped over the past few weeks. More than 2,100 square miles could flood in Mississippi. When the water level goes down -- and that could take many weeks in some places -- farmers can expect to find the soil washed away or their fields covered with sand. Some will probably replant on the soggy soil, but they will be behind their normal growing schedule, which could hurt yields. Many farmers have crop insurance, but it won't be enough to cover their losses. And it won't even come close to what they could have expected with a bumper crop. Karsten Simrall, who lives in Redwood, Mississippi, has farmed the low-lying fields for five generations and has been fighting floods for years, but it's never been this bad. "How the hell do you recoup all these losses?" he said. "You just wait. It's in God's hands." The river's rise may also force the closing of the river to shipping, from Baton Rouge to the mouth of the Mississippi, as early as next week. That would cause grain barges from the heartland to stack up along with other commodities. If the portion is closed, the U.S. economy could lose hundreds of millions of dollars a day. In 2008, a 100-mile stretch of the river was closed for six days after a tugboat collided with a tanker, spilling about 500,000 gallons of fuel. The Port of New Orleans estimated the shutdown cost the economy up to $275 million a day Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSUDad Posted May 26, 2019 Author Share Posted May 26, 2019 By: Kelly Beile Updated: May 25, 2019 08:32 PM CDT 235 BATON ROUGE, La. (LOCAL33/FOX44) - Update: As of 6:13 p.m., LA 70 is now open in both directions between LA 69 and LA 669 in Assumption Parish, per DOTD. Effective immediately, the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development has closed LA 70 in Assumption Parish between LA 69 and LA 996. Crews are prepping the area to install aqua dams which are necessary to de-water LA 70. Absolutely no vehicles will be allowed to pass through the area. Drivers should seek an alternate rouge. Potential detours include: LA 70 westbound at LA 996 to LA 69 and back to LA 70, or LA 70 eastbound to LA 69, then right on LA 996 back to LA 70. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSUDad Posted May 30, 2019 Author Share Posted May 30, 2019 FLOODING, NEWS, ST. MARY PARISH How does sinking the barge help with flooding? Dannielle Garcia 7:21 pm May 28, 2019 In St. Mary Parish, crews are working on a project designed to prevent backwater flooding in five south Louisiana parishes. The process to sink a barge in Bayou Chene is now underway. The Coast Guard closed off boat traffic in Bayou Chene in preparation for the barge. On Tuesday, workers began drilling the large pipe piles into place, so that the barge can be tethered to them and not float away. Wednesday morning, the barge will float over to its location, where officials will start sinking it, a process that could take seven days. “It’s a blessing. We’ve been trying to get it done since early March, knowing that it solves a lot of our problems with flooding,” said Stephensville resident, Leroy Gros. Once the spillway opens, water will eventually make its way to Bayou Chene. Without the barge in place, backwater flooding could bring even more water to places like Stephensville. Executive director of the St. Mary Levee District, Tim Mott, says the barge will block the water to prevent more flooding “So water is flowing, what we’re doing is putting in a flood gate. We’re blocking the water from going up into those areas and sending it in a different direction. In our case the direction is south, through the Terrebone Marsh which is a good thing, nobody lives there,” explained Mott. The barge will be filled with water to push the 70-foot sheet piles into the ground and ultimately close off the channel. It will take up to two weeks before the water travels down and reaches the Morgan City area, giving enough time for the barge to be submerged and lessen additional backwater flooding. “If they had done it in early March, we wouldn’t have any flooding at all. Like in ’16 and ’11, two weeks after they put the barge in, our water dropped 8 to 10-12 inches,” said Gros. Mott says they couldn’t sink the barge earlier because the state had not declared a federal emergency and the cost would have been too high for the parish. Now the river level is so high, sinking the barge is a necessity. “One of the things that makes this flood a little bit different though is that it has extended for quite long,” said Mott. He says surrounding areas could be dealing with high water until July. But residents like Gros say they’re thankful that some relief is on the horizon. “My biggest concern is we get good weather until all these guys can sink the barge before the Morganza Spillway water comes into town,” said the Stephensville homeowner. Back in March, the governor announced $80 million was secured for a permanent flood gate. Courtesy of Coastal Protection & Restoration Authority The management will be split by the surrounding parishes who are directly affected. The opening of the spillway and sinking of the barge has put the plans for that structure on hold. Officials with the St. Mary Levee District expect construction to be done in the fall of 2021. To see video of the barge from 2016, click here. To read more stories about the spillway opening, click here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSUDad Posted May 31, 2019 Author Share Posted May 31, 2019 UnmutePlay Loaded: 100.00% Duration 1:15 Fullscreen Mississippi River flooding receding It’s a serious situation. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is calling the current flood fight “historic and unprecedented,” which is why it’s about to open the Morganza Spillway for only the third time since its inception in 1954. Preparations have been made to stop backwater flooding in the floodway, including sinking a barge in Bayou Chene to serve as a temporary flood control structure. And when the Morganza Spillway opens it’s going to be some kind of show – by now everybody has seen what it looked like when Morganza was opened in 2011 during that year’s flood fight, but this is going to be a little more of a gradual release. Even still, it’s pretty scary. After all, here’s what it looks like at the Morganza floodgates as of two days ago… The management of the river when it’s at such levels is the subject of my American Spectator column out this morning; that’s a rather long piece tracing the history of the Corps of Engineers’ efforts to keep the Mississippi in its current channel and if you want to know a little about the hydrology and engineering history of the Corps’ river management, feel free to check it out. Another source for information about the river, and particularly the Old River Control Structure (ORCS) just north of the Morganza Spillway, which is the facility at which the Corps manages its fight to keep the Mississippi from changing course and flowing down the Atchafalaya to the Gulf – something my column points out would be an economic disaster on a biblical scale not just for Louisiana but for the U.S. and world economies as well – is Weather Underground co-founder Dr. Jeff Masters, who earlier this month wrote an excellent series of blog posts at that site talking about ORCS, the history of river management on the Lower Mississippi and what the future holds. Read Masters’ series here, here and here if you’re interested. Brian Haldane had Masters on the air this morning at Talk 107.3 FM in Baton Rouge, and it’s a 12-minute interview well worth your time… Audio Player 00:00 00:00 Is Masters correct in saying that the Mississippi will sooner or later change its course? Perhaps so. After all, the Corps has to win this fight every day, while the Mississippi only has to win it once. Meaning that the Corps’ talent and resources had better be up to the task. And the nation’s attention really ought to be on problems like this rather than global warming and some of the other agenda-driven environmental fads out there. The real issue, as discussed both in Masters’ series and my column, is the sediment deposits on the Mississippi’s riverbed. It’s a question of basic hydrology – the river has to flow at a certain rate in order to continue moving sediment down its course; if that flow slows down, the sediment falls out and is deposited in the river bed. And south of the ORCS – north of it as well; an LSU study found some 30 sand bars between Vicksburg and the ORCS upon which some 535 million cubic meters of sediment has accumulated over the past 30 years – there is enough sediment gathering that at Red River Landing, the Corps river gage located just across the Mississippi from Angola State Penitentiary, the river bottom has rise by an alarming 30 feet and the channel has narrowed significantly. So what has to be done, and Congress has mandated the Corps begin doing it (this came as part of the Water Resources Development Act of 2018), is to start dredging the river bottom and getting that sediment moving again. This isn’t really all that complicated. There’s a method of dredging called “agitation dredging,” in which – as applied to this problem – all you’re doing is scraping sand and mud off the riverbottom and moving it up into the water column so the river can move it toward its mouth. It might take lots of sites along the river where that dredging is being done, but that’s the point of the WRDA’s reforms of the Corps’ dredging practices. And the beauty of using the river to move that sediment for you down toward its lower delta is that there you can extract it to do coastal restoration. Which is an entirely separate post in and of itself Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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