20-25" of rain and the rivers already full. This one has potential to be real bad if something gives...
On a more serious note, acknowledging the river is high, shouldn’t they have opened up the Morganza to relieve some pressure heading into hurricane season? I don’t really know which spillway/ locks, etc. affect what from Baton Rouge south to the gulf. I bet @Nutriaitch does and maybe can shed some insight.
Yes, they should have but too many high-falutin types own fancy camps/farms out there so they drag-azz in typical LA political fashion. Always reactive and too late...
The Morganza spillway is the bigger one above Baton Rouge. It was built to keep the Mississippi River from changing its course and flowing down the Atchafalaya River, which it will someday do despite man's best effort.
Makes sense. My dad always said you can go against mother nature so long but, in the end, she will prevail.
was never really an option. river has to reach a certain amount of flow before they open the Morganza. Anything below that number is not considered to be a threat to Baton Rouge. if it doesn’t hit that number and they open it, then they’d be intentionally flooding other people on the “maybe” something else might happen. Which is not cool. yes, i’m aware that those people chose to buy/build in a floodplain. but they did so under the agreement that it would only be opened under certain conditions. conditions that so far this year have not been met.
That level was set almost 100yrs ago. Times change, populations shift/grow. Thinking its only there for BR and not the bigger picture up or downstream is the problem. River rise is a gradual process. Start early enough with a gradual approach and it doesn't come to the dire straights we have seen in the past with 20-30ft flood way levels. I will add that there is a reason they bought that land in the floodway for pennies an acre. Allowing people to build perm structures is the root problem, LA politics.
