Old River

There is a place between my acre, and Baton Rouge, along the Mississippi River, called the Old River Control Structure.  It's a massive engineering project that is ongoing, started in the early 20th century and continuing today.  It is designed to keep the Mississippi river controlled.  It's massive hydrology.

The problem is that the Mississippi river does not want to stay in it's channel.  It wants to take the Atchafalaya river.  The Atchafalaya river is straighter than the Mississippi, a more direct route to the Gulf, with a steeper drop.  If the Mississippi moves into the Atchafalaya, then Baton Rouge and New Orleans will be stranded without enough water to sustain the industry and the populations, resulting i a massive dislocation of people and resources.

My father always said that one of these days it will happen.  I've said it myself in the past.  Mother Nature works in her own ways, ad while we can live with the river and the floods, we can't control her, or the river.

This young lady presents a pretty good tutorial on what is happening today and what might happen tomorrow (or the next day).  If's fifteen minutes, but it's worth it.



With all the rain we're getting this spring, and all the snow that the west is still getting, we may be setting up for record flood.  It will be interesting to see i the structure can hold back the flood, again.