River floodgate opening eases pressure on levees

Morganza: Over the next few days, water spewing through a Mississippi River floodgate will crawl through the swamps of Louisiana's Cajun country, chasing people and animals to higher ground while leaving much of the land under 10 to 20 feet of brown muck.

The floodgate was opened on Saturday for the first time in nearly four decades, shooting out like a waterfall, spraying six feet into the air. Fish jumped or were hurled through the white froth, and what was dry land soon turned into a raging channel.

The opening of the spillway diverted water from Baton Rouge and New Orleans, and the numerous oil refineries and chemical plants along the lower reaches of the Mississippi. Shifting the water away from the cities eased the strain on levees and blunts the potential for catastrophic flooding.

The water will flow 32km south into the Atchafalaya Basin, and from there it will roll on to Morgan City, an oil-and-seafood hub of 12,000.

In the nearby community of Stephensville, rows of sandbags were piled up outside nearly every home.

Merleen Acosta, 58, waited in line for three hours to get her sandbags filled by prisoners, then returned later in the day for more bags.

Floodwaters inundated Acosta's home when the Morganza spillway was opened in 1973, driving her out for several months. The thought of losing her home again was so stressful she was getting sick.

The Morganza spillway is part of a system of locks and levees built after the flood of 1927, which killed hundreds and left many more without homes. When the Morganza opened on Saturday, it was the first time three flood-control systems have been unlocked at the same time along the Mississippi River, a sign of how historic the current flooding has been.

Earlier this month, the corps intentionally blew holes into a levee in Missouri to employ a similar cities-first strategy, and it also opened a spillway northwest of New Orleans about a week ago.

Painstaking

Snowmelt and heavy rain swelled the Mississippi, and the river has peaked at levels not seen in 70 years.

In Krotz Springs, one of the towns in the Atchafalaya River basin bracing for floodwaters, phones at the local police department rang nonstop as residents sought information on road closings and evacuation routes.

About 25,000 people and 11,000 structures could be affected by the oncoming water, and some people living in the threatened stretch of countryside have already fled.

It took about 15 minutes for the one 28-foot gate to be raised in the middle of the Morganza spillway. The corps planned to open one or two more gates yesterday in a painstaking process that gives residents time to evacuate.