Posted on 05/16/2011 1:12:42 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The Army Corps. opened the Morganza spillway on the Mississippi River in Louisiana on Saturday forcing tons of water and covering more than 100 acres of dry land with a foot of water within 30 minutes.
The flood gates were opened to shift the flow of the swollen river away from the numerous oil refineries and chemical plants in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. While the flood waters will move away from the more densely populated area, the opening of the gates could affect 25,000 people, 11,000 structures, and acres of farmland.
This is the first time the Morganza spillway has been opened since 1973. Residents have been evacuated.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Louisiana - Half under water, the other half under indictment.
I had occasion to be in Holland on a business trip. My hotel was pretty much "right next door" to one of the North Sea Levees. I thought the levees on the Lower Mississippi were impressive, but those pale by comparison to the Dutch structures.
Those ring-levee towns are about to get an epic snake, alligator, and rat infestation. The animals will flee to the nearest dry land.
IMO, sleeping on the second floor with a gun would be recommended.
Nothing more annoying than clicking on the video and the first ad is for the Kenyan.
It said 100 acres under a foot of water within 30 minutes. That’s just the beginning.
Sorry white farmers. Time to move on with your cracker @rses.
No it’s not sacred but the media is trying to make this another Katrina when it is nowhere near that. For starters the spillway was designed for this and the people being flooded out know that they can be flooded if there is a need. The other main issue is that Cajuns are not the dependent class moochers from NOLA.
Most of the area being flooded is water. The flooding is not all bad in that the wetlands will be replenished as nature intended. This will help with the coastal erosion problems. When the waters recede the fishing will be real good.
I was there when the floodways were opened in 1973. Didn't happen. Besides, there are alligators, snakes, and rats there all the time anyway. People know how to handle them. In 1973, the major incursion was from black bears, which wanted as little to do with people as possible.
Today it seems no one that knew or should have known lets that stop them from screaming and yelling and trying to change the rules ex post facto.
I used to work for FEMA and saw the Bonne Carre spillway opened in 1983. I thought THAT was impressive, this has to be an incredible sight!
I used to work for FEMA and saw the Bonne Carre spillway opened in 1983. I thought THAT was impressive, this has to be an incredible sight!
The Morganza Spillway, a 3,900-foot (1,200 m) controlled spillway using a set of flood gates to control the volume of water entering the Morganza Floodway from the Mississippi River, consists of a concrete weir, two sluice gates, seventeen scour indicators, and 125 gated openings which can allow up to 600,000 cubic feet per second (17,000 m3/s) of water to be diverted from the Mississippi River into the Atchafalaya Basin during major floods. The project was completed in 1954.600,000 cu. ft./second = approx 4.5 million gallons and is the maximum flow rate.
That's the "east" floodway. It has a backup that is about the same capacity....the "west" floodway. The difference between "east" and "west" is that the "east" has a formal control structure with gates. The "west" has what is called a "fuse plug levee", which will be BLOWN UP to divert the excess Mississippi flow (just like the one up in Missouri).
The "design flood" that the total floodway is designed to handle is 2X the 1927 flood. This high water is just about the same magnitude as the '27 one. So the system has PLENTY of design capacity available.
The Louisiana Department of Natural Resources Office of Conservation estimates that 2,264 wells lie in that area and would be inundated if the Corps of Engineers carries out its plans. Those wells produce the equivalent of 19,278 barrels of oil per day—about 10% of the state's onshore production, the state agency estimated.
There are some 140 operators in the basin, including BP PLC, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil Corp., Apache Corp., Devon Energy Corp., according to state data.
Because they lie in land that's been a designated floodway for 80+ years. They knew the risks.
I say, "Let them crash!"
It isn't. There is Baton Rouge, Louisiana (ever heard of it?), plus over a dozen oil refineries, including two half a million barrel per day operations, one of which, Exxon-Mobil Baton Rouge, LA is the largest oil refinery in the US, and is where the cat-cracking (catylic cracking) method of refining oil in to gasoline was invented, creating more gasoline from a barrel of oil. This country would be in a world of hurt, (you included) if these refineries were flooded. Finally, this was not an easy decision to make. Days went by while this was being discussed, unlike the sneak night decision to blow up the levee upriver.
You really have no clue about the strategic value of the ports of New Orleans and Baton Rouge, have you? You really have no idea how much of America’s oil refining is performed along this stretch of the river. Do you even know what’s at stake here — possible loss of the Mississippi River to a new channel — or do you just like to run your mouth?
They are not destroying the land, it will dry out.
“Mouth-running” happens at FR incredibly often these days— and on more topics than this one.
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