Does Anybody Remember The 1973 Flood?

Yes, I remember it, I've never seen a river so big moving so fast. The levees barely held.

I talked to some of the guys at work, they told me they had trouble closing the Morganza...that one of the levees had a breech.

I am kind of worry about that now.

73 flood was during the spring of 73.

I was only a teenager at the time but I remember it will as my family is from Morganza and I have relatives who work for the corps @ Morganza.

I saw the opening a few days after the first gates were opened.

In addition we had a camp @ Old river at the time where the water got into the second story.

Water stayed in our camp for almost a month. It was a mess after.

It was made worse by 20" of rain in one day. The river was too high drain the local water. This increased the backwater flood by an enormous amount. Crawfish were everywhere. I got to be at major sandboils while dad was meeting with the crews working to stop them. They built chimneys out of sandbags until the pressure equalized and the water stopped running out. It was fun for a kid.

I was twelve. I recall that on one side of the levee road to the SF ferry, another levee road branched off toward the mat field. On the river side of this branch levee, houses were flooding. On the other side, relatively dry.

I also recall (a few days after seeing this with my parents) that the cops were looking for the not-so-smart culprit who cut that branch levee road under cover of night.

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Hwy 15

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I think it is closed now between Blackhawk and Vidalia to the south.

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It was made worse by 20" of rain in one day.

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Are you exaggerating for effect? That would be a 500+ year storm event for the local drainage systems. Was there a large rain event that caused flooding in the local drainage systems as well though?

Yes it was spring because the deer kept eating the soybeans and kept having to be replanted, You could throw a dirt clod at them and they would just run off about 50 ft and go back to eating

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I wouldnt say a 500 year event there was a tropical storm, Iwant to say mid to late nineties come thru here from the houston area and dumped about twenty inches

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Based on the Rainfall Frequency/Magnitude maps about 12 inches in 24hrs is a 100-year event in Baton Rougr and about 14 or 15 inches in 24-hrs is a 100-event in Houston. If the 20 inches is spread out over say 48-hrs then it would be a little bit smaller event.