The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which exploded a Mississippi River levee late on May 2 to relieve pressure on floodwalls at Cairo, Ill., is starting preparations for a similar diversion in Louisiana next week.

The Corps pumped explosive slurry from barges into pipes in the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway in Missouri, flooding 130,000 acres of farmland to drop river levels. Water streamed through the breached levee at a rate of 550,000 cu ft per second.