Mississippi River Flooding: La. Braces for Wall of Water

With the Army Corps of Engineers opening two additional gates at the Mississippi River's Morganza Spillway on Monday, Louisiana residents are bracing for a wall of water to barrel down on them, which is likely to swallow up their homes, their business, and their memories.

Water is now flowing into the spillway at a rate greater than that of Niagara Falls, more than 100,000 cubic feet per second.

At that rate, it would take just over an hour and a half to cover the entire island of Manhattan in a foot of water.

So far only 11 of the 125 gates have been opened and the Corps plans to open more as the river rises.

The action is intended to be the surest way to spare cities like New Orleans from another tragic flood.

But cities like Butte La Rose, La., which sits on floodplain to the south, are being sacrificed in order to prevent larger areas from massive flooding.

The Corps began flooding the spillway on Saturday, opening the floodgates for the first time in 40 years.

The goal is to divert the record high waters of the Mississippi away from Baton Rouge and New Orleans, choosing to risk smaller communities in an attempt to avert disaster in the most populous cities.

"It's really heart wrenching, that we here are going to be sacrificed for others. And it's a numbers game I guess," said Guy Comier, Parish President at St. Martins Church in Butte La Rose.

The Mississippi River crest is not expected to arrive at the Morganza spillway for at least a week, and mandatory evacuations are already under way in many places.

Neighborhoods in the water's path have turned to ghost towns with sheriff's deputies and members of the National Guard going door to door telling residents to pack up and get out.

Kate Buchannan, another Butte La Rose resident, says that she certainly isn't going anywhere -- though she is shipping out her prized possessions. She stands to lose not only her home, but her business too -- Kate's Place is the one and only bar in town.

"Everybody is stoic, they understand, Buchannan told ABC News. "People in New Orleans got it a few years ago. There's a lot fewer people here. These folks are made of much sterner stuff here. We're not gonna whine and cry."

Some residents are attempting to protect their homes through a variety of do-it-yourself tactics.

One resident is wrapping his home in plastic, while Max Doucer is banking on a combination of sandbags, dirt and hope.

"People are strong here, they are going to rebuild better than ever. They love it. Its home for a lot of people, its camp for a lot of people. It's God's country. People love it here so they will be back, bigger and better than ever," Doucher said.

President Obama echoed his message of hope after he met privately Monday with families and local officials affected by the flooding in Memphis. He heard their stories and praised their resilience.

Following the meeting, Obama delivered a commencement address at Booker T. Washington High School where he spoke of the response to the series of natural disasters that have hit the country this spring.

"The success of our economy will depend on your skills, but the success of our community will depend on your ability to follow the Golden Rule -- to treat others as you would like to be treated," he said. "We've seen how important this is even in the past few weeks, as communities in Memphis and all across the South have banded together to deal with flood waters and to help each other in the aftermath of terrible tornadoes."

Evacuations in Cajun country after floodgates open

Renee Ledoux cried when the National Guard and sheriff's deputies showed up at her front door and warned her she needed to get out to avoid water gushing from the Mississippi River after a floodgate was opened for the first time in four decades.

But by the 5 p.m. deadline Sunday, the 44-year-old Ledoux and her boyfriend Billy Hanchett decided to ride it out one more night on air mattresses inside the empty home in Krotz Springs. They have a camper they plan to stay in on a friend's property outside the flood zone.

"We really don't want to go," Hanchett said. Ledoux added that she felt blessed that they had the camper because a lot of others have nowhere to go except shelters.

Deputies all over Louisiana Cajun country were warning residents to head for higher ground and most heeded it, even in places where there hasn't been so much as a trickle, hopeful that the flooding engineered to protect heavily populated New Orleans and Baton Rouge would be merciful to their way of life.

Days ago, many of the towns known for their Cajun culture bustled with activity as people filled sandbags and cleared out belongings. By Sunday, some areas were virtually empty as the water from the Mississippi River, swollen by snowmelt and heavy rains, slowly rolled across the Atchafalaya River basin. It first started to come, in small amounts, into people's yards in Melville on Sunday. But it still had yet to move farther downstream.

The floodwaters could reach depths of 20 feet in the coming weeks, though levels were nowhere close to that yet in the towns about 50 miles west of Baton Rouge.

About 11 miles north of Krotz Springs in the town of Melville, Mary Ryder, her fiance and her fiance's father were loading up a trailer with as many belongings as they could fit to drive over the levee to stay with relatives on the other side of town. Ryder lives in a mandatory evacuation area, where water is starting to creep into backyards. They worried about what might happen if a broader evacuation is ordered.

"They say we have to leave town. We have nowhere to go," she said. "What are we going to do? I have no idea. We need help up here."

The spillway's opening diverted water from the two major Louisiana cities — along with chemical plants and oil refineries along the Mississippi's lower reaches — easing pressure on the levees there in the hope of avoiding potentially catastrophic floods.

That choice angers John Muse, who drove from Lafayette to Melville to help his 86-year-old father-in-law Clovis Cole move his belongs. He said officials seem to be paying more attention to the concerns of Baton Rouge and New Orleans than people who live in the basin.

"They hurt a lot of feelings by putting that water in here like they did," he said. "What's happening here, I'll tell ya, it's not fair."

In Butte LaRose, some 50 miles downstream from where the Morganza spillway was opened, Chalmers Wheat, 54, was among the few left — and even he was headed for his father's home in Baton Rouge outside the flood zone. He and his twin brother, Chandler, were making a few final preparations to protect his home with plastic lining and sandbags.

"It's almost like a ghost town," said Wheat.

It will be at least a week before the Mississippi River crest arrives at the Morganza spillway, where officials opened two massive gates on Saturday and another two Sunday. There are 125 in all. The Mississippi has broken river-level records that had held since the 1920s in some places.

The Army Corps of Engineers has taken drastic steps to prevent flooding. Engineers blew up a levee in Missouri — inundating an estimated 200 square miles of farmland and damaging or destroying about 100 homes — to take the pressure off floodwalls protecting the town of Cairo, Ill., population 2,800.

The Morganza flooding is more controlled, however, and residents are warned each year that the spillway could be opened. A spillway at the 7,000-foot Bonnet Carre structure in Louisiana also has been opened.

Just outside Krotz Springs, 23-year-old Jake Nolan said National Guard troops knocked on the door of his home in a subdivision to tell his mother of the evacuation order. He said they advised her to have white towels and have access to the roof if they planned to ride it out — presumably in case of a rescue — though that didn't appear to be part of any official instructions. And besides, he didn't need an order to leave with his wife and three children.

"I don't want to be stuck here if the water does get bad," said Nolan, who planned to stay with a sister in Port Barre.

It seemed animals didn't want to be stuck anywhere: Deer, hogs and rabbits have started running from the water flowing near the floodgates, said Lt. Col. Joey Broussard of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. An electronic sign on Interstate 10 warned of a possible animal exodus: "Wildlife crossing possible. Use caution," it read.

Despite the mandatory evacuation order, Krotz Springs town clerk Suzanne Bellau said it was unlikely the sheriff's office would force people to leave. For most, the worst part was wondering what may happen. National Guardsmen were building a second levee to bolster protection for the town.

"It's the unknown, that's the problem," Bellau said. "Is it going to come into their homes or not? And the people who are leaving, what are they coming back to?"

Mississippi River spillway opened as towns brace for floodwater

Authorities could open two additional floodgates Sunday, sending water from the swollen Mississippi River gushing toward homes and farmland in an effort to spare Baton Rouge and New Orleans from severe flooding.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers opened one floodgate on Saturday for the first time in nearly 40 years.

"As the river needs it, we'll open it," said Col. Ed Fleming, the Corps' New Orleans district commander.

Fleming said that depending on water levels, the Corps may open more than two gates.

The opening of the Morganza spillway prompted the National Weather Service to revise its flood forecasts for the lower Mississippi River.

The revised forecasts have lowered projected cresting levels in some Louisiana cities and towns, according to the weather service.

The Morganza spillway is about 115 miles northwest of New Orleans.

The spillway's opening has also moved up the dates the river was previously predicted to crest in those cities.

In Baton Rouge, where the weather service had previously predicted the Mississippi would crest at 47.5 feet on May 22, the latest forecast shows the river will top out at 45 feet on Monday.

In New Orleans, the river is now expected to reach its crest at 17 feet on Sunday, instead of 19.5 feet on May 23, according to the weather service. The New Orleans levees are built to withstand 20 feet.

The river is also predicted to crest Sunday near Arkansas City, Arkansas, at 53 feet -- 16 feet above the flood stage, the National Weather Service noted on its website.

In Vicksburg, Mississippi, the river is expected to crest at 57.5 feet Thursday, which is significantly above the flood stage at Vicksburg of 43 feet.

Residents near Vicksburg counted on a levee for protection. In addition to the mainline levee along the river, starting near Vicksburg and extending northeast for more than 20 miles, a so-called backwater levee offers shelter.

The backwater levee is designed to keep water from backing into the Yazoo River delta and is designed lower than the mainline levee so that water can flow over it.

"We estimate that every home built on the river side of the levee from Memphis all the way to the Louisiana line is flooded," said Mike Womack, executive director of the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency.

Flood stage is the level at which the river may begin flowing over its banks. That crest, or high point of water, has been moving slowly and steadily southward for several weeks.

No storm systems that could reverse the lowered cresting forecasts are expected to pass through region within the next five days, said Royce Fontenot of the National Weather Service.

Fleming said the difficult decision to open the spillway, and similar ones made in recent weeks, was done to address a historic excess of water in the Mississippi River system, including its tributaries. While the opening of the spillway is expected to divert water away from Baton Rouge and New Orleans, parts of low-lying south-central Louisiana will be flooded.

By Saturday afternoon, all those "within the first 24 hours" -- meaning, those who should see flooding caused directly by the spillway's opening -- had evacuated, Fleming said.

The opening came after several days of warning as residents in the flood zone prepared to move to save their lives.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said the high water resulting from the Morganza spillway opening could affect 3,900 people and 2,600 structures.

"Right now, a lot of people are real nervous about it. It's sad," said Larry Doiron, a resident of Stephenville, a town facing flooding because of the spillway's opening.

"We need to have protection so that they don't flood us."

He said his subdivision would likely be fine because it was built at a relatively high elevation, but his neighbors were building additional levees and putting out sandbags.

Seven Louisiana parishes -- Pointe Coupee, St. Landry, St. Martin, Iberia, Iberville, St. Mary and Terrebonne -- will likely be affected by the first opening of the spillway since 1973, according to the Corps.

Fleming said Saturday that the spillway will likely be open for weeks, and it will be at least that long before those who have evacuated can safely return. It will take considerable time -- in some cases, weeks -- before the river falls back below the flood stage.

Morgan City, which sits on the banks of the Atchafalaya River, is also among those communities expected to see rising water.

"Really, we're just waiting," said Evie Bertaut, who has lived in the city for 50 years.

Officials believe that the levees will protect the city from flooding, but some are taking preliminary precautions, she said. At Sacred Heart Church, where Bertaut works, people spent the day Friday moving important documents such a baptismal, marriage and financial records to the second floor.

"Most people are getting their photographs together, things that you can't replace in case you have to go," she said.

The river's slow pace has given emergency responders more time to prepare, forecasters said.

Across the South and lower Midwest, floodwaters have covered about 3 million acres of farmland, eroding for many farmers what could have been a profitable year for corn, wheat, rice and cotton, officials said.

Farmers who have crop insurance and whose crops have been damaged by the flooding will be eligible for crop insurance in accordance with their policies, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.