NEW ORLEANS — Recent rain up north has caused the Mississippi River to swell, so Wednesday, the Army Corps of Engineers will open the Bonnet Carré Spillway to relieve the pressure on New Orleans area levees.
That isn’t the only measure that is being taken. The river here in New Orleans is higher than normal and the current is moving with a lot of velocity. When those conditions exist, a lot of safety measures are taken on both sides of the levee.
As sightseers took to the river’s edge at the Uptown ‘Fly’ area near Audubon Park to gape at the high water, the Corps is now conducting daily levee inspections to make sure the flood control structures are not compromised by the fast-moving current.
“Typically, in levee inspections, the inspectors are looking for any seepage points, barges parked close to the levee, cars or equipment parked on the levee itself,” said Sarah Stone of the Corps.
Both the Corps and the local levee districts have been in a flood fight for the past four months. But, with the Carrollton gauge on the Mississippi quickly heading toward the flood stage of 17 feet, extra precautions are being taken, including limiting activity close to the levee.
“We permit, in conjunction with the Corps and the CPRA, all subsurface construction within 1,500 feet of the center line of the Mississippi River levee,” said Derek Boese. “At elevation 15, we close everything down.”
The river is now on the verge of hitting a velocity of 1.25 million cubic feet per second, which would fill the Superdome in about a minute’s time.
“There’s been so much rainfall and precipitation up in the north that you’re seeing just a lot of water earlier this time,” said Boese.
There are also restrictions now in place on the other side of the levee. Southbound shipping on that part of the river is restricted to daylight hours only. Also, ships that are loaded and anchored along the river must have a river pilot on board at all times.
Ships tend to be sluggish heading upriver and sometimes hard to maneuver in high-water conditions.
Recently, a ship was captured on video struggling in the high water near the city’s River Walk.
“We had a vessel that was northbound right below the GNO (Crescent City Connection),” said Captain Steve Hathorn, a river pilot and the president of the New Orleans/Baton Rouge Steamship Pilots Association. “He was holding up for some traffic and he got in an eddy or a large whirlpool and the vessel tops around and got broadside before he got control of it. Luckily, there were some tugs close by and he got control with it and continued on north.”