The maps are “decision-making tools to help operate the Mississippi River and Tributaries system as we face record-breaking river conditions,” says Col. Ed Fleming, New Orleans District commander. “In the interest of public safety, the Corps must evaluate every possible scenario.”

The maps are a quick, risk assessment, but not hydraulic modeling, which would assess site-specific overtopping or minor breaching of parish levees to assess flood depths, Bivona says. “Hydraulic modeling like that would take weeks to prepare, and we needed an emergency planning tool to plan flood fight capabilities.”

Louisiana Governor Jindal met with the Unified Command Group of state and federal leaders on May 11 and gave an on state preparation efforts in anticipation of the Morganza Spillway opening.  “It is very important, even as we continue to prepare for the worst and hope for the best, that citizens in the Morganza Spillway area continue to listen to their local officials and news on the impact of opening the spillway,” Jindal said. People in those areas of anticipated inundation should not wait for official notice of the opening, but prepare “as if this will happen,” he said. “It is better to be over-prepared.”

Two days earlier, soldiers of the Louisiana National Guard’s 769th Engineer Battalion began constructing sand-filled HESCO basket barriers in Morgan City to add 3 ft of protection to a local levee district levee. 
By the afternoon of May 10, Guardsmen had constructed approximately 650 yards of a total of 10,000 linear ft of protection.

Despite flooding along the Mississippi River and in floodways, the MR&T is doing what it was designed to do, says Dan Hitchings, former director of the Corps’ Task Force Hope in New Orleans, and current program manager for Arcadis-US, performing design and construction management for Corps projects in south Louisiana. “It is working, and if it wasn’t in place, you can’t imagine the extent of the flooding we would have,” Hitchings says.

“In Vicksburg in 1927, the flooding was over 80 miles wide. Imagine if a Mississippi River levee broke in the vicinity of Vicksburg,” Hitchings said. If the federal government hadn’t built all those spillways and operated them, we would have flooding over miles and miles of agricultural land and thousands and thousands of homes. Thank goodness we have had weeks to prepare.”

According to Corps reports, the river crested in Memphis on May 10 at 47.87 ft, just below the 1937 record of 48.70 ft. The crest was expected to peak at 56.3 ft in Helena, Arkansas on May 12. The flood fight continues from Tennessee through Louisiana.