Things are looking up . . .

Things are looking up in that the Atchafalaya will crest at a lower elevation at Morgan City/Berwick area. Those little communities like Stephenville and Amelia are making preparations and with a lower forecasted crest may help them avert disaster.

Butte LaRose may not get it as bad as forecasted too. I understand there are some hold outs that will not leave their hoomes. Sounds like Mount St. Helens kind of thinking to me. All too fatalistic. And they had dire results, the same could happen to the hold outs in Butte LaRose. I guess that is why they live there to begin with, isolation and the beauty of the swamp. It is all they have and they just do not want to give it up.

Last I read there now 17 gates open in the Morganza Spillway Structure. I understand they will get to 21 gates now. Even so, at 17 gates the estimate is 114 thousand cubic feet per second going through that massive structure. Photos from the space station show just how much water has already gone through those gates. The concept and design is working. If they go to 21 gates, that is about 17% of the capacity of the control structure. I understand the crest at Vicksburg was not as high as forecasted, by less than a half a foot or so.

That just means the accumalators, the balloons, are soaking up a lot of the water and some of it is going into the ground. That also means those same accumalators will slowle release their water holdings over a longer period of time. So while the crest may not be as high as expected the duration will last longer. That to is a risk in that the levees will have to hold for a longer period of time. And time is one of the many enemies of a levee.

Not so lucky up river at Yazoo City/Vicksburg area. Memphis too. The low lying areas all flooded as expected. They live to learn their lessons again. But the poor usually have no where else to go but into the "cheap" territory. They get the land cheap and their small houses get consumed every so often. Others learn about how tributaries back up because they have no place to send their water and in fact get water pushed up their courses. No matter what you house cost it is a terrible loss.

It is never pretty. Saw where a three grain barges ran into a parked barge, sank all three of the barges. One came back up but it was enough to shut the river down in North Baton Rouge. The Old Mississippi Bridge abuttment had to be inspected and the sunk barges located. The rivermen say it is very hard to control the tows when the water is high - that means faster currents, more trash and snags moving down the river, etc. A few years back an empty gasoline barge hit an abuttment of that bridge and blew up. It knocked a large piece of decking out on the West bound side of the bridge closing it for a while.

Old Man River is the master!