Mississippi River Floodgate to Open Today, Inundating Louisiana Cajun Area
Baku, May 14 (AZERTAC). The opening of Louisiana`s Morganza floodway today may send enough water to fill a football field 10 feet deep every second across the heart of Cajun country, eventually filling an area almost as large as Connecticut.
Major General Michael Walsh, president of the Mississippi River Commission, has told Col. Edward Fleming to open the spillway when the river`s flow reaches 1.5 million cubic feet per second at Louisiana`s Red River Landing, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said in a statement. The flow reached that threshold this morning, according to the weather service.
“We have not opened it yet,” said Ken Holder, corps spokesman.
The spillway, built in 1954, can release 600,000 cubic feet of water per second into central Louisiana and the Atchafalaya River at maximum capacity, taking pressure off the Mississippi and the cities downstream, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Corps inundation maps assume the spillway operating at 50 percent of capacity.
The corps expects to release 150,000 cubic feet per second from the Morganza, which is 310 river miles above New Orleans. The opening of the Morganza is expected to drop crests on the Mississippi River from 1 to 2 feet, according to the National Weather Service.
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal said yesterday that the Morganza would be opened gradually and wouldn`t result in a wall of water running the length of the state to Morgan City, 70 miles west of New Orleans, where the Atchafalaya empties into the Gulf of Mexico. He stressed the need for residents to move quickly.
About 2,500 people and 2,000 structures are within the spillway and another 22,500 and 11,000 buildings are vulnerable to flooding when the waters rise, according to Jindal`s office.
When the Morganza Spillway is opened, an estimated 15,000 acres of farmland will be initially underwater in the south- central part of Louisiana along the Mississippi River, Kyle McCann, a spokesman at Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation.
Opening the spillway will also affect Louisiana`s energy production. Inside the threatened area are 2,264 wells that produce 19,278 barrels of crude oil a day, about 10 percent of Louisiana`s onshore total.
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