re: Escalating Floods Putting Mississippi River’s Old River Control Structure at Risk

My land didnt flood when there wasnt a levee

LINK

This had some pretty cool footage of the structure as well as a bit of backstory on everything. You can tell she is from Simmsport

Sorry (not sorry) that your simple mind struggles with complex topics involving engineering, fluid dynamics, etc.

that's cool, but don't pretend to be a wizard up in here.

Yes.

I'm not a civil engineer, but as a trained surveyor, I've worked with many and I know my fair share of hydraulics, soil and water engineering principles and design methods, etc., and real world examples of success and failure implementing it all. You do not want to arm wrestle with the force of water- especially moving water. Make no mistake, the Mississippi is one giant laboratory of the science of hydraulics. Think of a hydraulic line on a tractor that has a weak spot- what happens? The fluid under pressure- hydraulic forces- expose that weakness without delay, and exploits it with extreme force. That tiny stream of fluid that is sometimes not visible to the naked eye will inject poisonous fluid into just about anything it hits and keep going (including human flesh) and keeps flowing until full displacement has been achieved. If there's a weak spot in the Missisippi's "hydraulic line" (and somewhere there is) then one day, whenever those laws of physics that want to "displace" find it, we will never stop it. And make no mistake about this either: while those forces are present, they're waiting, and they are ruthless: They do not think, they only act.

One time I was working on a 400 acre topo project to design a neighborhood development. One of the surveyor/engineers on the project, who was a crabby old bastard that I had an immense amount of respect for and who had just about seen it all, had to remind a younger EIT that his grand ideas of solving some very real and problematic drainage issues on the parcel via "overcoming" what the water wanted to do, was not only a more expensive option (and a lazy one from a design standpoint), but it could very well be an act of futility: One can never tell what will happen when the sky opens up for months on end and tests the design data sitting on the engineer's computer screen.

Not when we're talking about the quintessential definition of the word dynamic, that is, water, that is fluids under pressure, aka, hydraulic power.

A basic premise is that you work with the water and not against it, and you exhaust all efforts to stick to that premise. When- and only when- you've exhausted those options do you attempt to overcome nature's mouthpiece; because while throwing all that man has in his engineering arsenal may work to overcome it, it might very damned well NOT work, and even if it does, don't trick yourself into ever thinking you've truly dominated it. Truth is, you've only come to a peaceful, albeit tentative, agreement for it to "stay put."

And it's that "tentative" part that matters when winning battles means jack diddly chit when the history books tell of who won the war: regardless, time is against you and water has all the time in the world to wait for its singular moment to show who's running the show. No matter how heroic and diligent the upkeep and mitigation measures are, one single weak point, one single COE worker who skimped on a QC check because of a bad case of "the Fridays," is all it takes for the ruthlessness of water under pressure to skull drag our arses into submission once again.

I'll never forget his lecture to that EIT in a real world setting that even the greatest of engineering schools can't reenact in a lab or classroom, and that I was lucky enough to be within earshot of hearing a master of civil engineering tell of his respect and awe for what hydraulic fluid, aka pissed off water, can do to the best of engineering feats. We have a long way to go before we absolutely free ourselves from the crushing force of water like the Mississippi River, and I doubt we ever truly do.

quote:

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I'm not a civil engineer, but as a trained surveyor, I've worked with many and I know my fair share of hydraulics, soil and water engineering principles and design methods, etc., and real world examples of success and failure implementing it all. You do not want to arm wrestle with the force of water- especially moving water. Make no mistake, the Mississippi is one giant laboratory of the science of hydraulics. Think of a hydraulic line on a tractor that has a weak spot- what happens? The fluid under pressure- hydraulic forces- expose that weakness without delay, and exploits it with extreme force. That tiny stream of fluid that is sometimes not visible to the naked eye will inject poisonous fluid into just about anything it hits and keep going (including human flesh) and keeps flowing until full displacement has been achieved. If there's a weak spot in the Missisippi's "hydraulic line" (and somewhere there is) then one day, whenever those laws of physics that want to "displace" find it, we will never stop it. And make no mistake about this either: while those forces are present, they're waiting, and they are ruthless: They do not think, they only act. One time I was working on a 400 acre topo project to design a neighborhood development. One of the surveyor/engineers on the project, who was a crabby old bastard that I had an immense amount of respect for and who had just about seen it all, had to remind a younger EIT that his grand ideas of solving some very real and problematic drainage issues on the parcel via "overcoming" what the water wanted to do, was not only a more expensive option (and a lazy one from a design standpoint), but it could very well be an act of futility: One can never tell what will happen when the sky opens up for months on end and tests the design data sitting on the engineer's computer screen. Not when we're talking about the quintessential definition of the word dynamic, that is, water, that is fluids under pressure, aka, hydraulic power. A basic premise is that you work with the water and not against it, and you exhaust all efforts to stick to that premise. When- and only when- you've exhausted those options do you attempt to overcome nature's mouthpiece; because while throwing all that man has in his engineering arsenal may work to overcome it, it might very damned well NOT work, and even if it does, don't trick yourself into ever thinking you've truly dominated it. Truth is, you've only come to a peaceful, albeit tentative, agreement for it to "stay put." And it's that "tentative" part that matters when winning battles means jack diddly chit when the history books tell of who won the war: regardless, time is against you and water has all the time in the world to wait for its singular moment to show who's running the show. No matter how heroic and diligent the upkeep and mitigation measures are, one single weak point, one single COE worker who skimped on a QC check because of a bad case of "the Fridays," is all it takes for the ruthlessness of water under pressure to skull drag our arses into submission once again. I'll never forget his lecture to that EIT in a real world setting that even the greatest of engineering schools can't reenact in a lab or classroom, and that I was lucky enough to be within earshot of hearing a master of civil engineering tell of his respect and awe for what hydraulic fluid, aka pissed off water, can do to the best of engineering feats. We have a long way to go before we absolutely free ourselves from the crushing force of water like the Mississippi River, and I doubt we ever truly do.

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We could boil it.

The Corp of Engineers used to own a hopper dredge called the Poydras it was a hopper dredge that could be used to dredge South West Pass. The Corp was forced to maintain and stack it 9 months of the year. Why? Because of the private dredging Lobby. Huge waste of money.

At the end of the day, mother nature wins. The Corps will be pointing fingers and blaming anyone, anybody else they can. If only we had more $$$$$$$$$$. etc. etc,. etc.

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Wherever you see cypress trees West of the river is where the water will go.

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With no levee controls that would be the Coteau Ridge that runs just east of I49 from Carencro running north and south. You get on the ridge on US 190 coming into Opelousas . Port Barre elevation is 23’. Opelousas is 69’

She has beautiful eyes.