Morganza Floodway Travel Times, a photo by Team New Orleans, US Army Corps of Engineers on Flickr.
The Pointe Coupee Banner | Corps directed to open Morganza Spillway
The Morganza Spillway has been opened to protect Baton Rouge and New Orleans from the Mississippi River potentially overflowing its carefully-carved banks in these cities. According to Tim, this does not keep New Orleans river levels from subsiding, but stabilizes the flow rate downstream from the spillway. “Operation of [the] spillway and floodway will keep [river] stage from going above 17 [feet] at [the] Carrollton [gage].”
The US Army Corps of Engineers designed the spillway to be opened “when the flow of the Mississippi at Red River Landing, Louisiana, is greater than 1,500,000 cu ft/s (42,000 m3/s) and rising.” With 125 bays, that’s 12,000 cfs per bay. As of this writing, one Morganza bay is open. More from Tim: “The spillways operate to maintain 1.5 million cfs flow at Baton Rouge and 1.25 million cfs at New Orleans. Doing the math, 0.25 M cfs flows out [of the] Bonnet Carre [spillway].”
WWLTV New Orleans reports that the spillway may be open for several weeks.
My heart is with you, Acadiana.
==
- Team New Orleans, USACE Flickr Photoset
- WWLTV New Orleans coverage [with video]
- In the words of Jeffrey, “CNN is mass psycho analyzing all of South Louisiana right now,” so you can check there, too.
- Also, check GeoEye and DigitalGlobe for satellite images of Atchafalaya flooding in the coming days.
- Morganza spillway coordinates: N 30.60128 W 91.41998
Where do people get off thinking the world will come to an end, they will be pneumatic-tubed to Heaven and all will be answered in their lifetimes? Then again, why not? What’s so special about any other coming time in Earth history that it cannot happen next week?
At any rate, I’m seriously tempted to stage a scene in this ‘hood that involves “vehicles left behind.” There is an East Asian church around the way. Wouldn’t it be funny if a whole bunch of empty cars with doors open suddenly filled its parking lot, the pastor showed up and I ran towards him screaming, “We non-whites were left behind! Nooooo!”
Guess only I think about these things. And find them amusing.
Two relatively young New Orleanians I knew slipped, fell, and died. As they lived alone, both of their bodies were not discovered for days. One in the Marigny, the other Uptown. One last month, one this month. Death can happen to anyone at any time. Numbers all around me are being called, just ask. But, unlike my in-laws or grandmother, for instance, who saw their deaths coming for a long while, these people died without warning.
I, too, could get hit by a car tomorrow. No, wait, that has happened twice and I lived. I could fall off a cliff. Nope, that’s happened too, and I made it. At any rate, something could happen that wipes me out. Tomorrow. Today. Right now. But, what if I die in my sleep at the age of 85? What will my life have meant between now and then?
Derek Miller died the other day. I didn’t know him, but his most graceful message of life and death is going around the internet. We should all feel so lucky and thankful when we pass on.
… It turns out that no one can imagine what’s really coming in our lives. We can plan, and do what we enjoy, but we can’t expect our plans to work out. Some of them might, while most probably won’t. Inventions and ideas will appear, and events will occur, that we could never foresee. That’s neither bad nor good, but it is real.
I think and hope that’s what my daughters can take from my disease and death. And that my wonderful, amazing wife Airdrie can see too. Not that they could die any day, but that they should pursue what they enjoy, and what stimulates their minds, as much as possible so they can be ready for opportunities, as well as not disappointed when things go sideways, as they inevitably do.
Carnival in Arcueil by Lyonel Feininger, 1911 | The Art Institute of Chicago | October 2010
