RESIDENTS IN swampy areas of Louisiana’s Cajun country waited last night for the rising waters of the Mississippi to engulf their homes, after US army engineers opened a key floodgate in an attempt to save New Orleans from the river’s worst flooding since 1927.
Units from the corps of engineers opened up the first gate on a structure known as the Morganza spillway, sending about 280cu m of water per second into the Atchafalaya river basin.
The Associated Press reported that 40 hectares were under 30cm (12in) of water after 30 minutes.
It was the first time that the corps, which is in charge of managing the Mississippi flood controls, had had to resort to opening the spillway since 1973.
Engineers were expected to open up at least two more gates last night. The operation was designed to divert water from the Mississippi, and reduce pressure on the levees protecting Baton Rouge and New Orleans. The diversion will channel the water into the Atchafalaya Basin, and on to the oil town of Morgan City.
But it will submerge about 7.800sq km of low-lying, swampy land beneath up to 7.5m of water.
A number of small towns in Louisiana’s Cajun country will be destroyed, driving 25,000 from homes occupied for generations.
In towns such as Krotz Springs, one of the first areas on the flood path, authorities issued mandatory evacuation orders. “Everyone in the affected areas must be out!” Don Menard, the president of St Landry parish said in his directive.
Residents of one small town, Butte La Rose, said they had been advised to pack for the long haul. “They told us to move as though we were moving . . . not coming back, not to so much as leave a toothpick behind,” said one.
In other towns in the path of the flood, people loaded up trucks with sand bags to fortify levees.
More of the 125 spillway gates will be opened in the coming days, as the high waters of the Mississippi roll towards New Orleans. The river is forecast to reach its peak at the city on May 23rd and then take up to two weeks to empty into the Gulf of Mexico.
“It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” said corps chief Maj Gen Michael Walsh. “There is huge pressure on the system as we work the water through.”
But the decision to open the gates was a cruel choice, said mayor of New Orleans Mitch Landrieu. “It doesn’t make us feel any good that [by] protecting New Orleans, other folks are going to get hurt,” he said. But without the opening, New Orleans would face up to six metres of water pouring atop its levees, and floods far worse than Hurricane Katrina in 2005. – (Guardian service)