Louisiana floodgate opens, diverting Mississippi River

Water gushes from the Morganza Spillway today, as Army Engineers attempt to minimize flood damage in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Louisiana

story by AP
written by Melinda Deslate and Mary Foster
video by NBC

MORGANZA, La. — A steel, 10-ton floodgate was slowly raised Saturday for the first time in nearly four decades, unleashing a torrent of water from the Mississippi River, away from heavily populated areas downstream.

The water spit out slowly at first, then began gushing like a waterfall as it headed to swamp as much as 3,000 square miles of Cajun countryside known for small farms and fish camps. Some places could wind up under as much as 25 feet of water.

Opening the Morganza spillway diverts water away from Baton Rouge and New Orleans, and the numerous oil refineries and chemical plants along the lower reaches of the Mississippi.

"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 Morganza spillway is part of a system of locks and levees built following the great flood of 1927. When it opened, it was the first time three flood-control systems have been unlocked at the same time along the Mississippi River.

Earlier this month, the corps intentionally blew holes into a levee in Missouri to employ a similar cities-first strategy, and it also opened the Bonnet Carre spillway northwest of New Orleans to send water into the massive Lake Ponchatrain.

Snowmelt and heavy rain have been blamed for inflating the Mississippi, and the rising river levels have shattered records all set 70 years ago.

About 25,000 people and 11,000 structures could be in harm's way.

In Krotz Springs, La., one of the towns in the Atchafalaya River basin bracing for floodwaters, Monita Reed, 56, recalled the last time the Morganza was opened in 1973.

"We could sit in our yard and hear the water," she said as workers constructed a makeshift levee of sandbags and soil-filled mesh boxes in hopes of protecting the 240 homes in her subdivision.

Some people living in the threatened stretch of countryside — an area known for small farms, fish camps and a drawling French dialect — have already started heading out. Reed's family packed her furniture, clothing and pictures in a rental truck and a relative's trailer.

"I'm just going to move and store my stuff. I'm going to stay here until they tell us to leave," Reed said. "Hopefully, we won't see much water and then I can move back in. "

Opening the spillway will release water that could submerge about 3,000 square miles, some places would be under as much as 25 feet in some areas.

"Protecting lives is the No. 1 priority," Army Corps of Engineers Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh said Friday at a news conference aboard a vessel on the river at Vicksburg. A few hours later, the corps made the decision to open the key spillway.

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.

Instead, the water will flow 20 miles south into the Atchafalaya Basin. From there it will roll on to Morgan City, an oil-and-seafood hub and a community of 12,000, and eventually into the Gulf of Mexico.

The Krotz Springs area was in a sliver of land about 70 miles long and 20 miles wide, north of Morgan City. The finger-shaped strip of land was expected to be inundated with 10- to 20-feet of water, according to Army Corps of Engineers estimates.

It will take days for the water to run south, and it wasn't expected to reach Morgan City until around Tuesday.

The corps employed a similar cities-first strategy earlier this month when it blew up a levee in Missouri — inundating an estimated 200 square miles of farmland and damaging or destroying about 100 homes — to take the pressure off the levees protecting the town of Cairo, Ill., population 2,800.

The disaster was averted in Cairo, a bottleneck where the Ohio and Mississippi rivers meet.

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, which is 4,000 feet long and has 125 gate bays.

At the site of the spillway, a vertical crane was in position to hoist the gate panel and let water out one of the bays. On one side of the spillway, water was splashing over the gates. The other side was dry.

Typically, the site of the spillway is dry on both sides. But when the river rises to historic levels, like the ones seen over the past couple of weeks, it holds the Mississippi in place.

The spillway, built in 1954, is part of a flood plan largely put into motion in the 1930s in the aftermath of the devastating 1927 flood that killed hundreds.

It is set to be opened when a flow rate of 1.5 million cubic feet per second is reached and projected to rise. Just north of the spillway at Red River Landing, the river had reached that flow rate, according to the National Weather Service.