Precautionary Evacuation of Horses by LSU VetMed Staff

red55 · May 15, 2011

joker said: ↑

Someone please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe what is different and whats makes this significantly more dangerous is the volume of water coming down and the length of time the levee will have to hold.

I believe we are facing 3-4 weeks or more of sustained levee pressure.
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That is an issue. The thing that made the 1927 flood so bad was that there were three flood surges coming down the valley strung out behind each other. When the first one hit the flat coastal plain and the gradient flattened it slowed down and then the second and third surges piled onto it and topped the levees everywhere. This flood looks like a single surge, but it is a really big and sustained one.

Tiger_fan · May 15, 2011

COramprat said: ↑

It's not like this level of the river hasn't happened before is what I was getting at. It happens abut every 3-4 years. Just so happens this year gets press because of the opening of Morganza. Sure there is a danger in a levee breach...every year the water gets to the levee system and at any time you could have failure. I just think it's being made more of an issue since both floodways are opened. No one batted an eye when the water got to the last step on the Baton Rouge levee in 2008. Everyone climbed to the top and went..."Ohhh look how high it is."
If you are worried now you should be worried every spring when the water comes up. No different this spring.
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in 2008, the river crested at 43.09 ft in Baton Rouge, was the highest it had been since 1997, and was the 6th-highest crest in Baton Rouge since the Great Flood of 1927

what they are planning to do now, even with the opening of the spillways upriver, is maintain a crest of 45 feet in Baton Rouge, which will be the highest crest since it hit 45.18 feet in 1945.... 66 years ago. So unless you were around in Baton Rouge 66 years ago, you haven't seen anything like this.

on top of that, it's not just the peak crest that is the issue... another issue is the length of time that this 45 feet crest is going to have to be maintained in Baton Rouge. i haven't seen confirmation of this, but the news was saying up to 3 weeks

and another issue is the velocity of the river.

i don't know how the current velocity and/or prolonged time of the high crest stacks up against other historic floods, but i did read quotes like the following:

"My concerns are not only for the height of the river, but the velocity of the river," said Capt. Ed Stanton of the US Coast Guard [Sector Commander].
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“I’m not worried about overflow over the top of the [Baton Rouge] levee because of the use of sandbags,” said [LSU environmental engineering professor Dr. Zhi-Qiang Deng], “I’m confident that we don’t have a flood risk in Baton Rouge due to overflow.” ... Deng said his main concern is sand boils. “Levees collapse because of sand boils, not overflow,” Deng said.

[sand boils are when the water seeps through the dirt/sand of the levee and/or seeps through the dirt/sand under the levee]

“The levee can sink due to erosion by sand boils, making it possible for a levee that was formerly high enough, to be overtopped and cause catastrophic failure,” said [LSU environmental engineering professor Dr. Donald Adrian].

Also, with prolonged flooding, as predicted, the levee will be continuously soaked in river water. The levee will get “muddier,” lose its strength, and eventually yield to the immense pressure of the flood waters, Adrian said.

“Levees are not designed to resist this type of situation,” said Adrian.
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NOAA projected crest for Baton Rouge for the next 5 days:

BATON ROUGE 44.8 45.0 45.0 45.0 45.0
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LMRFC - Mississippi and Ohio River Forecast

mctiger · May 15, 2011

COramprat said: ↑

It's not like this level of the river hasn't happened before is what I was getting at. It happens abut every 3-4 years. Just so happens this year gets press because of the opening of Morganza. Sure there is a danger in a levee breach...every year the water gets to the levee system and at any time you could have failure. I just think it's being made more of an issue since both floodways are opened. No one batted an eye when the water got to the last step on the Baton Rouge levee in 2008. Everyone climbed to the top and went..."Ohhh look how high it is."

If you are worried now you should be worried every spring when the water comes up. No different this spring.
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You're not getting it. The Morganza is being opened this year precisely because something like this has not happened before. Or at least, it hasn't happened to this degree of severity. The water in Morgan City comes above the wharves on the Atchafalaya and laps up to the seawall's edge every year. By this Wednesday, the water will be 6 feet up that wall. It is an impressive wall, but this will be the first time it will actually have to do what it was built for. And the fact that they are still allowing barge traffic down the river throws the possibility of human error into the equation.

Believe us all, this is very different from previous springs.

COramprat · May 15, 2011

mctiger said: ↑

You're not getting it. The Morganza is being opened this year precisely because something like this has not happened before. Or at least, it hasn't happened to this degree of severity. The water in Morgan City comes above the wharves on the Atchafalaya and laps up to the seawall's edge every year. By this Wednesday, the water will be 6 feet up that wall. It is an impressive wall, but this will be the first time it will actually have to do what it was built for. And the fact that they are still allowing barge traffic down the river throws the possibility of human error into the equation.

Believe us all, this is very different from previous springs.
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No, I do get it. Anytime the water gets to the levee it puts stress on it. What I'm saying is between 43 and 47 feet there is always a danger. This year may be minutely more dangerous than past years when it got past 43 feet. The difference this year is the Morganza had to be opened thereby decreasing the level at Baton Rouge.

They won't stop barge traffic due to the money involved. I saw in a recnet article that it cost $250,000,000 a day when they shut down the river due to that gas line rupture a few years ago. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.

OkieTigerTK · May 17, 2011

COramprat said: ↑

They won't stop barge traffic due to the money involved. I saw in a recnet article that it cost $250,000,000 a day when they shut down the river due to that gas line rupture a few years ago. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.
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hope you didnt put any money on that.

NEW ORLEANS – The Coast Guard has interrupted shipping along the major artery for moving grain from farms in the Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico over fears that the bulging Mississippi River could strain levees that protect hundreds of thousands from flooding. Already, thousands have sought refuge from floodwaters up and down the river.

The Coast Guard said it closed the Mississippi River at the port in Natchez, Miss., because barge traffic could increase pressure on the levees. Heavy flooding from Mississippi tributaries has displaced more than 4,000 in the state, about half of them upstream from Natchez in the Vicksburg area.
Several barges were idled at Natchez at the time of the closure, and many more could back up along the lower Mississippi. It wasn't clear when the river would reopen, but port officials said the interruption could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of millions of dollars per day.
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Costly Miss. River closure meant to protect levees - Yahoo! News

COramprat · May 17, 2011

Somebody got some sense. I give them an A.

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Precautionary Evacuation of Horses by LSU VetMed Staff

red55 curmudgeon Staff Member

Tiger_fan Veteran Member

mctiger RIP, and thanks for the music Staff Member

COramprat Simma Da Na

OkieTigerTK Tornado Alley

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