re: IF the river were to change course...

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True, but who said anything about driving?

With everything between Lafayette and BR being underwater, you must think outside the box (or levees, in this case). The new SuperCajunDome will have boat slips just like Neyland Stadium.

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On the bright side, I'll get to use my kayak to go see a Saints game.

On another note, there is SOME infrastructure this way, the Port of New Iberia comes to mind. Although some (all?) might be under water for a while. I have been curious about the 'worst case scenario' for a while. All the information that I've seen so far has just been along the lines of the Atchafalaya becoming the Mississippi River, but no explanation of exactly how wide, what areas might be under water, etc.

This scenario has been a possibility for decades, but I have yet to see any possible new 'future maps', for example. It's not possible that noone has looked at what will happen in that scenario, so why is this information hard to find?

Just venting, sorry.

The LA coast would grow at a rapid rate where the mouth would open to the gulf, the areas around the present mouth would dissappear. The Louisiana coast would be unrecognizable in a year.

Has there been a major river anywhere in the world changed course in the modern era, like the Amazon, and if so what happened?

I have no clue. But, the Mississippi will eventually change course and there is really nothing we can do about it. All we are doing is delaying the inevitable change in path.

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It's not going to change its course people ....

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This month? You are probably right. Eventually? Every resource I have come across states that it WILL happen eventually.

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Has there been a major river anywhere in the world changed course in the modern era, like the Amazon, and if so what happened?

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It did happen with the Yellow River in 1938 during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

LINK

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To stop further Japanese advances into the western and southern part China, Chiang Kai-shek, at the suggestion of Chen Guofu, determined to open up the dikes on the Yellow River near Zhengzhou. The original plan was to destroy the dike at Zhaokou, but due to difficulties at that location the dike was destroyed on June 5 and June 7 at Huayuankou, on the south bank. Waters flooded into Henan, Anhui, and Jiangsu. The floods covered and destroyed thousands of square kilometers of farmland and shifted the mouth of the Yellow River hundreds of miles to the south. Thousands of villages were inundated or destroyed and several million villagers driven from their homes and made refugees. An official Nationalist post-war commission estimated that 800,000 were drowned, which may be a low figure.

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The dykes were later repaired and the river resumed its original course.

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Well duh, and eventually the sun is gonna blow up. Just not this month.

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ORCS is 48 years old and there has already been one major scare in 1973. Who knows what this year will bring. That could be two major test in 48 years where the Corps almost lost the river. It is well within reason to think that LSU students today may live to see the river change course.

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All we are doing is delaying the inevitable change in path.

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And that may one day overshadow one of the greatest engineering endeavors in human history.

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have you looked at a map lately? the mouth of the AR is near morgan city.

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Part of it also goes out of the Wax Lake Outlet through the Calumet cut. That is west of Morgan City.