Planning for high water
The LSP Emergency Operation Center will extend its operations to 24 hours.
State Police Troop A will continuously patrol the Morganza Spillway. This will be a 24-hour patrol until further notice.
Information on Mississippi River levee control structures
Click Here to view a PDF of the Morganza Flooding Map
Click here to view a PDF of Controlling the Mighty River on levees, flood control structures.
Link to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' South Louisiana Flood Inundation Map
Multimedia
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Morganza spillway opened
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Area, state prepares for rising Mississippi
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AP Graphic: Mississippi flooding
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Authorities opened seven bays on the Morganza Spillway on Sunday as people already surrounded by water prayed for the levees to hold while others in the path of the slow-moving flood packed their possessions.
The spillway in Pointe Coupee Parish operates as a safety valve by diverting water from the Mississippi River north of Baton Rouge to the Atchafalaya Basin, where it then flows into the Gulf of Mexico.
Sunday’s openings bring the number of spillway bays open to nine, said Rachel Rodi, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The corps has estimated that it will take opening one-fourth of the spillway’s 125 bays — or 31 bays — to control the flow of the river through Baton Rouge.
The number of bays opened is determined by the flow of the river, which must remain below 1.5 million cubic feet of water per second through Baton Rouge to ensure the integrity of the levee system, said Ricky Boyette, a corps spokesman. “The Morganza Spillway structure and the system in its entirety is performing exactly how it was designed,” he said.
The river is expected to crest at 45 feet in Baton Rouge on Tuesday — which is a week earlier than previously forecast — because the spillway was opened, according to the National Weather Service.
Rogers and Lois Domingue’s Morganza ranch-style home of 16 years sits a short distance down La. 1 from the spillway, on a small strip of land located in a bend of the levee.
The other side of the levee near the couple’s home is usually dry, with trails that lead back to beaches and areas for crawfishing, he said.
But now the Domingues can see stacked sandbags on top of the levee, a structure that separates their house from the river’s powerful flow of water.
“I was panicking,” Lois Domingue said. “I’ve lived in Morganza my whole life, and the water always rises, but I just knew this was different.”
Next door to the Domingues, the small congregation of The Living Word of Faith Church devoted part of their Sunday service praying that the levees would remain stronger than the river waters.
“That’s all we can do,” said the Rev. Patricia Cain. “Faith will hold the levees.”
Several women recalled when the river rose to threatening levels.
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Please pray for these people, Thanks
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From Harry Potter, "And now we wait." Who knows what will happen now with the Morganza Spillway open. Read earlier that it will take 31 gates to be open to effect the water level at Baton Rouge. That's a lot of water to go through the Morganza Structure. That alone could cut a new river bed down to the Atchafalaya.
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We're spending a lot of time focusing on the Morganza, when the real player in this story is the Old River Control above the Morganza. If that fails as it almost did in 1973, we are in for a disaster that will alter the lives of everyone in south Louisiana beyond our wildest dreams.....
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As a member of the "rest of the country" we're still waiting for our "thank you" that comes from spending billions over the years keeping the river in check. Meanwhile, Louisiana does its best to make sure the rest of us get to keep paying dollar after dollar to support your sick, old, increasingly diabetic or cancerous population. Good thing your governor opposes every single idea that would help to bring the state out of the 1920s and into the century the rest of us are enjoying. Whatever happened to BP ruining your state's fisheries, anyway? How's that going? Jindal holding their feet to the fire, or making excuses for them?
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What would Louisiana do without its prisoners? They are always eager to work but they don't even get a thank you.
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Billo and I will assume you will mail us a check for sending your goods through our state come on what a ridicules statment
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Well, Keith, sorry, but my state's ports are bigger than New Orleans, Baton Rouge, or Lake Charles - even combined. And since we're on the pacific rim, we ship more valuable items than coffee, rubber and wheat. Oh, well! Try again. Oh - we are also "business hostile" according to your governor because we actually sue the pants off of companies that destroy our wildlife habitats and fisheries. Louisiana must not care very much about the vaunted hunters and fishermen or the health of the game they catch.
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