History Unfolds

[Derrell Day]

Hi Everybody,

Hurricane Katrina will probably come close to destroying one of our major cities tomorrow. The storm surge is expected to be 20-25' and add another 1-2' of rain and you have the entire city under 20-30' of water. The Old River Structure which keeps the Mississippi River from altering course and flowing down the Atchafalaya River Basin will be most likely be destroyed and alter the course of the great river.
Biloxi, located on what appears to be the NW quadrant of the storm will receive the brunt of the wind and wave activity. Winds are currently sustained at 160mph with a forward speed of 15mph which adds to sustained winds of 175mph. Higher gusts in the 200+ mph range will be experienced.

If you would, please keep these folks in your prayers.

The links below are NDBC stations and weather platforms in the direct path of the storm.

http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=42040

http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=burl1

http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=42007

http://www.wunderground.com/radar/radblast.asp?ID=LIX

[Bill Robinson]

Thanks Derrell,
I lived and worked in NOLA for several years.

On the Old River Structure, are you talking about the Morganza Spillway?

You will see some of this as well, right?

Bill R

[Dave NBCR]

A piece of irony is that the home for the hurricane hunters is at Columbus AFB in Biloxi.

Those aircraft are probably in Huston right now waiting for the blast to pass them. They dispatch from south Texas because they always approach the hurricane from the rear.

A place I wouldn't want to be is on any of the oilrigs that dot the coast just offshore of that area.

Dave

[Jason Pharez]

Hey guys, I live in Mobile, AL...we're expecting to get the east side of Katrina, so lots of rain, wind, and tornadoes. We were pretty much ground zero for Ivan last year and many homes still need repair from him. I spent all morning taking in all the outdoor stuff and gassing up the generator/trucks...also charging up all the cordless batteries for my Milwaukee radio (great during Ivan!)

I really feel for NOLA and her people--we were down there on vacation not long ago; it'll be a shame to see the city undergo so much chaos.

I also have a vacation home in George County, MS, which should get hit pretty hard. I hope the massive overbuilding I performed pays off!

Our prayers are with the Gulf Coast.

[Derrell Day]

CONTROLING THE MISSISSIPPI

Controlling the Mississippi river did not come into peoples’ minds until they saw that the Mississippi was slowly starting to change its course again and totally avoid New Orleans. This first started to get serious after Captain Henry Shreve cleared a large logjam in 1831 that was blocking water from going down the Atchafalaya River. After he had cleared the raft (logjam) the waters from the Miss started to flow down the Atchafalaya more and more. This started to worry the people that owned businesses in New Orleans and the politicians in the state. Not only was New Orleans a popular place for tourists to go, it was also one of the major ports in the United States. In an attempt to slow or even stop the natural process the river wanted to take the Army Corp of Engineers built a structure that would monitor and control the amount of water that flowed into the Atchafalaya from the Mississippi. This structure is called the Old River Structure. With this new structure built the Army Engineers can also stop major floodwaters from reaching New Orleans. If a flood that would threaten New Orleans would start to flow down the Mississippi river the engineers could open up the locks that control the waters form going down the Atchafalaya and let the waters go down toward Morgan City instead of New Orleans.

Another way man has attempted to control the Mississippi River is by building man made levee systems down the river’s sides. Since more and more companies have put power plants or factories next to the river, the owners felt they needed more protection from the river’s floodwaters (see chapter 18). The floodwaters that would normally rise over the natural levees and flow into the valleys next to the rivers, where the plants and factories now are, would cause enormous amounts of damage to the factories and plants.

In the mid to late 1800’s the local governments started to build manmade levee systems along the dangerous parts of the Mississippi. In 1872 the Federal Government started to supervise the production of the levees but leaving most of the power to the local governments. Even with the supervision the levee system was not sufficient to prevent the flood of 1927. After that year the Army Corp of Engineers took over the planning and construction of the levees. The levees were built much higher and there were extensive studies done on the river during flood and normal stages to see what other measures should be taken in the instance of a flood. With this study they started work on the spillways or emergency outlets. The levees were built higher, broader, and stronger. New techniques were put into effect that made production much faster

There were also two spillways made to prevent the Mississippi River from flooding into New Orleans from flooding into New Orleans, the Bonnet Carre, which goes into Lake Pontchartrain, and the Atchafalaya spillway or Old River Structure. The Atchafalaya spillway is much larger than the Bonnet Carre spillway. It is 13 miles wider than the Bonnet, which allows 350,000 more cfs of water form the Mississippi River to the Atchafalaya.

[Bill Robinson]

Thanks for the info Derrell.
http://www.btnep.org/minis/fieldtrip/trip20.htm

Here is a link to more on this.

We worked the Morganza Spillway in the 70s to demo some flood damage to the spillway.
Very interesting.

If this storm destroys the system the implications are huge.

Stay safe,
Bill R