False River -the Lake . . .

False River, an ox-bow lake along the Mississippi River is located in Pointe Coupee Parish and the county seat, New Roads, resides on its banks.  The lake was formed when the Mississippi closed the loop and cut through a new channel cutting the lake.  This cut off was discovered around 1700 when Bienville was exploring the Mississippi River.  The name "Pointe Coupee" literally means cut off.  A quick Internet search on Pointe Coupee will reveal the location and lots of information on the locality.

The lake today is several miles from the Mississippi River and is a stand alone body of water.  It is about 20 miles long and while its width varies is about a mile wide.  The lake is part and parcel of the parish drainage system and so when it rains the water generally flows into the lake.  Around 1904 Bayou Cirie was cleared and the lake drain excess water off via that tributary.  Today there is drainage canal with a weir and it flows into Bayou Grosse Tete.

The lake is kept generally at an elevation just below 16 feet sea level.  The weir sets the level and there are flood gates that can lower the lake further if needed.  A weir is a low level dam of sorts, so it allows excess water to overflow out, keeping the lake around 15.9 feet above sea level or as the locals say above the Gulf of Mexico.  The lake is located about 200 miles from the Gulf of Mexico as the crow flies and gives you an idea of how low and flat Louisiana really is.

The recent deluge rains as result of a tropical disturbance, once a hurricane, flooded the region.  True East Baton Rouge Parish, across the river and east and slightly south of Pointe Coupee Parish. got the brunt of the rains but Pointe Coupe got perhaps 15 or 16 inches of rain.

With hours False River began to rise and went to roughly 22 feet about sea level.  That is a six foot rise of a large body of water that mostly occurred over night.  The entire region is flooded and the run off is occurring all over the place.  Water may have even flowed back into the lake from Bayou Grosse Tete.  So one has to wait for the bayou to drain off, and the drain off goes into the Great Atchafalaya Swamp south of the region.  So it takes while as Bayou Grosse Tete, small river of sorts drains a large area, has a lot of water to move.  And False River is at the top of that elevation, almost the source of Bayou Grosse Tete today.  That makes False River the last place to drain off.

The family owns a camp, a nice three bedroom manufactured home on the lake.  It is on about an acre of land with a frontage that is a little over three hundred feet across.  Today it is one of the larger plots on the whole lake, most all the other areas have been subdivided and subdivided again to narrow 60 foot or so lots.  We all use the camp and the family share the expenses on upkeep.  So we are very protective of the place at all times.

Fortunately we have flood insurance and while the camp came with in inches of flooding, water did get underneath the structure and there is some damage but nothing like many others have suffered.  There are literally thousands of folks that are worse off than we are so we are sort of low priority but we will make sure the place is restored back to its normal self.  So I expect it will take a while before we can use it again.  And when we return we will all have our work cut out for us.

So we, as a family, were on the edge of the cusp but not totally in it.  Our furniture, appliances, etc. survived with no damage.  But we will have to fight mold and mildew and gradually watch the water receded to the normal elevation.  And it will smell to high heaven for a while as there is a ton of new rotting detritus all over the place.

I did not mention it, the lake was about to be lowered for ecological repairs.  Farm run off has silted up the lake and parts of it are to be dredged.  The project has already gone though one stage with a new island man made at the south end of the lake.  So more work was going to be done to reduce the inflow of silt and the changing of the water levels every so many years is good for the fish population.  So now the lake has to go from 22 feet down to 13 or so feet instead of the normal 15.9 feet, that will take a while to do.  That is 9 feet or so of water, that is many thousands of acre feet of water that has to be removed from the lake via normal drainage routes.  Those routes are inundated and will be for more than a month, it will take a while.

So we watch and we wait.