Mississippi and Louisiana Brace for Surge of Water

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

Having already flooded hundreds of thousands of acres in the nation’s midsection, the rain-swollen Mississippi River is now threatening levees in Mississippi and Louisiana. The river’s levels are gradually increasing as workers feverishly seek to reinforce levees to protect riverfront towns.

On Thursday morning, the river crested at Helena, Ark., at 56.5 feet, 8.5 feet above flood stage.

By next week, the surge of water is expected to reach Vicksburg, Miss., a city that has already had flooding in low-lying areas and is likely to see more once the river crests there May 19, officials said.

So far, levees are holding, though there is the possibility that a levee on the Yazoo River backwater may soon be overtopped, which officials said was part of the way the flood control system had been designed. A high density polyethylene cover has been placed atop the earthen levee to prevent it from eroding, officials said.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/13/us/13floods.html

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The article later quotes a Corps of Engineers spokesman named Bucky Wall.

[grahamhgreen]

1. This has nothing to do with global warming.

:sarcasm:

[Rage for Order]

10. Did global warming have anything to do with it 38 years ago?

75 years ago?

:shrug:

[Fly by night]

2. ... and here in Tennessee, we have rain in the forecast for the next 5-7 days.

Last year's 500 year flood here in middle Tennessee is still fresh on our minds.

I got 27 inches of rain in 27 hours on my farm last May 1-2, and the damage is still very obvious.

[Omaha Steve]

3. Rising Mississippi takes aim at Cajun country

Source: AP

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN

BUTTE LAROSE, La. (AP) - In the latest agonizing decision along the swollen Mississippi River, federal engineers are close to opening a massive spillway that would protect Baton Rouge and New Orleans but flood hundreds of thousands of acres in Louisiana Cajun country.

With that threat looming, some 25,000 people in an area known for small farms, fish camps, crawfish and a drawling French dialect are hurriedly packing their things and worrying that their homes and way of life might soon be drowned.

People in this riverfront community gathered at their volunteer fire station to hear a man dressed in Army fatigues deliver an ominous flood forecast.

Col. Ed Fleming leaned over a podium this week and warned that projections by the Army Corps of Engineers call for the station to be inundated by up to 15 feet of water. The crowd let out a collective gasp.


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20110513/D9N68RQ00.html

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Workers build a temporary levee in Krotz Springs, La., Thursday, May 12, 2011, in advance of possible flooding if the Morganza Spillway north of Baton Rouge is opened. Crews were rushing to build temporary levees to protect properties that have been built outside of the town's permanent ring levee over the last few decades. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)


OOPS!

[armodem08]

4. Um, headline? n/t

[Omaha Steve]

5. My fault

The last copy and paste from the previous LBN post got posted and I didn't catch it in preview. :-)

I'm on legal drugs for my staph infection. What excuse will I have in 10 days?

[elocs]

6. How does a river "take aim"? n/t

[nolabear]

7. Jesus. How much more can these people stand?

I have to say, people in the South pick up and move on better than just about anybody, because they've (we've() had to so damn many times. But there comes a time when you just wonder.

Be strong, mes amis.

[Rage for Order]

8. If you're wondering where in Louisiana this place is...

If you've ever driven east/west on I-10 from Baton Rouge to Texas, as you go across the Atchafalaya Basin bridge, about 20 miles long over the swamp, when you get to about the middle point of that bridge look south about 2 or 3 miles

[Rage for Order]

9. On an unrelated note, Excite is still around???

I thought they went out of business a decade ago