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

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If people looked at what Native Americans and people before the levees were built did then there would be no need for flood insurance.

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Did the native americans have a multi-billion dollar industry based on trade, based on the river?

The cost of protection - whatever that is - will be cheaper than the cost of relocation and restructure of our economic systems.

Open the Morganza Spillway.

If Old River Control Structure Fails: A Catastrophe with Global Impact

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If the Old River Control Structure (ORCS) were to fail, barge navigation might be interrupted for weeks and possibly months. Barge traffic on the new mainstem of the river--down the Atchafalaya’s channel—would be limited or impossible during the initial months of the channel change, due to turbulent and dangerously unstable conditions. At the split in the river’s channel at the ORCS, the river would dump a massive amount of sediment, potentially blocking navigation downriver on the old Mississippi channel towards Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Navigation might still be possible for a few months after the event with extensive dredging efforts, but the blockage might become so great mere dredging may not keep a clear channel for barge traffic, requiring that a new navigation lock be constructed—a multi-year project costing $100+ million. Closure of the Mississippi to shipping would cost the economy $295 million per day, said Gary LaGrange, executive director of the Port of New Orleans, during the great flood of 2011. Closure for multiple months would cause a cascade of impacts across a broad sector of the U.S. economy, multiplying costs.

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Who gives a chit. 295mm per day, 10bb per month.

Its a 2 significant digit rounding error on the fed budget.

Life would go on, patterson would become a major shipping hub.

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Could you imagine how screwed Assumption Parish would be with flooding if that happened?

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Just gives more water for the Landry's to catch their gatas.

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Shits been repeated so many times that its not even believable any more

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Doesn't make it any less true.

The river will change course. It is inevitable.

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The river will change course. It is inevitable


in 2000 years?

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As long as they have been measuring the overall riverbed height of the lower Mississippi, it grows on overage about 1.1" higher per year. In certain isolated areas, like around ORCS, it grows sometimes a few feet in a year.

Either way, at the rate of 1.1" per year, after 20 years the river will be almost 2' higher than it is today.

In 50 years the river will be almost 5' higher than it is today.

In 100 years it will be almost 10' higher than it is today.

There is no way the levees can keep that in check. It won't take 1000 years. IT won't even take more than a few decades for a catastrophe to be likely. This is the way alluvial rivers work. They deposit sediment and get higher until they can spill over their banks and find a new path to the ocean.