Amazing Numbers on Flows Through Spillways

mm is that million

Was talkin to a post-grad in my lab up here at LSU and he said the Army Corps doesnt want to open Morganza because the M.River could possible jump so hard that they wont be able to close it, because the river has been wanting to jump for decades and the Corps has kept it contained with all the gates and shite up above BR.

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Was talkin to a post-grad in my lab up here at LSU and he said the Army Corps doesnt want to open Morganza because the M.River could possible jump so hard that they wont be able to close it,

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I don't believe that at all.

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Army Corps doesnt want to open Morganza because the M.River could possible jump so hard that they wont be able to close it

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I keep hearing this, but don't understand why they wouldn't be able to close it. The river level is going to go down in June. When the river is way down, the water on the batture/forebay of the Bonnet Carre structure doesn't even reach the weir height... There's no rushing water to deal with.

Maybe the Morganza is constructed differently.

If they open up the Morganza(which they have not done since 1973) it will be catastrophic to the Atchafalaya Basin. Friends that own a camp on Four Mile Bayou in the Lake Verrett area are heading out there today to try and get all there furniture up. He thinks his camp might be in trouble already just with the water rising so fast. He said if the Morganza is opened, his camp is done. Sad, sad situation for everyone involved in this one. We might be on the verge of another 1929(I think that was the year) flood.

I crossed through Morgan City yesterday and without the gates open the water is only about two feet below ground level by the seawall. Morgan city, Gibson, Southdown Mandalay and portions of Bayou Black are going to have some problems.

I can't think of an instance where forced drainage hasn't screwed something up. Our coasts would be much better off and protected in many instances if we just let the flood plain do its job. Sure some areas would not have been developed but in the big scheme of things that would be better.

Our place on Verret is about 5.5ft up....guess we will see what happens.

The idea that a river finds the shortest route to the ocean is what I'm saying. This is the reason they built the ORCS, to keep the MS River from diverting back to the Atchafalaya through Old River. But if you open up Morganza, which is a shorter route, their afraid if the MS River suddenly diverts pressure off Old River to the Army Corps Morganza Channel they could have problems with the dam and control structure that are there to keep the MS River from diverting which it nearly did in '73.

River and Spillway Flow Rates
Here is the link.