Progress report

Got to say I've been pretty aggravated that this blog has been out of commission for the last two days.  And then they deleted everything posted after the 11th!  No indication of why.  Seems like they could at least tell you what happened, doesn't it??

Well, anyway -- we've been told that they're finally going to open Morganza Spillway tomorrow afternoon, so that should lower the river crest level here in Baton Rouge by about 2 feet.  I know that's a bad thing for folks on the west side of the river, but I can't help being hugely relieved that we probably will NOT have to move out ourselves.  

Probably.  I can't say I'm completely relieved yet, though.  The levee down the road from us is less precise than in most areas nearer town.  There are some really low spots.  But Channel 9 went out and checked it out and broadcast the problem beginning yesterday.  By this afternoon nothing had been done about it, though.  They dumped a bunch of dirt at the bottom of the levee, but they had not begun to raise the level.  Check out this WAFB Channel 9 video from this morning.   

Okay, I wrote that just before tonight's news.  But maybe I'm wrong.   Here's tonight's newscast.  

Now that it's become public, it appears they WILL get around to raising and leveling that levee before the river comes up enough to run over the top.  We hope.  Below is a map showing a broader view of those sharp curves in the river just north of us.  We live in St. Gabriel at the point of the river on the bottom right.  That low point in the levee is at the point where the river comes close to 30 in the center of the photo (the loop north of our place).   Note that there is no construction in that area between the two loops, just low farm land, so if the river WERE to overflow there it would run out to the homes in that area VERY quickly.  So I'm really grateful to that TV station for publicizing the problem. 

Okay, I've added this last figure to show exactly where everything is.  St. Gabriel is there in that red circle . . . smack in the middle of the low area of the city and way too close to that low levee.