The Mississippi Spillways

[william the wie]

This is not the usual "hey look at this guys" thread. With the Mississippi floods threatening the spillways what level of repairs will be needed after the floods subside? Just a question about repair guesstimates, probable disruptions and general effect on the economy.

 

[martybegan]

This is not the usual "hey look at this guys" thread. With the Mississippi floods threatening the spillways what level of repairs will be needed after the floods subside? Just a question about repair guesstimates, probable disruptions and general effect on the economy.

It depends on what you mean by repairs, and what is to be repaired. If it is the spillways themselves, ACE will have to inspect Old River Control, the Morganza spillway and The BC spillway after the event is over for any structural or geotechnical damage. Some is expected (scouring, gate damage) but they would then have time to repair it. for the fuse plug/blown levees, they will require rebuilding.

For areas flooded due to the spillways, it will be silt cleanup, standing water pumping, and alot of debris removal. The ACE will be the lead agency on this, but remember the people living withing the spillways/flood plains knew this could happen, the ACE may just decide to not renew the easments that allow them to live within the levees, especially in the Atchafalaya flood plain.

 

[waltky]

Click on link at bottom of post for amazing pics of flooding...

Islands in the stream: The extraordinary homemade dams holding back the Mississippi as desperate residents try to save their homes
19th May 2011 - Residents go to extreme measures to save their homes; Flooding claims its first death

We've all undertaken home improvements but these residents in flood-stricken Mississippi have had to embark on major construction projects just to protect their houses and livelihoods. These homes in Vicksburg are all situated along the Yazoo River, a tributary of the overflowing Mississippi River, and their owners have surrounded themselves with tons of earth and sand. With questions over whether the main levees that protect the area from floods would hold, these farmers took no chances and have so far saved their homes and crops from destruction.

The flooding claimed its first life today, after an elderly man slipped while clinging to a fence and drowned before authorities could come to his aid. Two firefighters on a boat patrol on Wednesday spotted Walter Cook, 69, holding on to the fence in chest-deep water. By the time they reached him, Cook was floating in the water. The elderly man died overnight at River Region Medical Center in Vicksburg of 'hypoxic brain injury due to drowning,' the coroner stated. Hypoxia is an abnormal condition resulting from a decrease in the oxygen supplied to or utilised by body tissue.

Vicksburg has seen the worst of the floods with the Mississippi River's height swelling to 56.3 feet at its highest point, eclipsing the record set in 1927. Employees at Dirt Works, Inc, a cement production business in South Vicksburg, built a makeshift levee to protect the business but it burst on Monday.

The Yazoo River's Backwater Levee connects with the main Mississippi River levee, and with the Mississippi River overflowing the Yazoo River has been forced to top its banks where they meet, near Vicksburg. With heavy rains having left the ground saturated there has been widespread flooding along three million acres of farmland from Illinois to Louisiana along the Mississippi. Around 15 miles of the Mississippi River, which had been closed since Tuesday, has now been reopened with the region and the nation absorbing huge financial losses from the closure.

Read more: Mississippi River flooding: Residents build homemade dams to saves houses | Mail Online

 

[william the wie]

I'm more concerned about the reassuring comments being made about the spillways not giving way. Levees and spillways south of Baton Rouge giving way is not a major immediate problem for the rest of the country but giving way north of Baton Rouge will screw up the economy from from southern Alberta to the Gulf and western New York to eastern Idaho. How long will it take to straighten that out? And how bad are likely knock on effects?

 

[martybegan]

I'm more concerned about the reassuring comments being made about the spillways not giving way. Levees and spillways south of Baton Rouge giving way is not a major immediate problem for the rest of the country but giving way north of Baton Rouge will screw up the economy from from southern Alberta to the Gulf and western New York to eastern Idaho. How long will it take to straighten that out? And how bad are likely knock on effects?

The spillways are designed for the flow they can take in. The real fear is that not enough flow will be diverted soon enough, and the mainline levees will start failing. That is the real issue.

So much of the media reporting on this is either wrong, very wrong, or completely wrong. The structure they talk the most about, Old River Control, is actually 4 structures, all desgined to keep the MR in its current basin. The use of spillways is not only to prevent levee failure, but to keep this structure intact.

 

[Publius1787]

This is not the usual "hey look at this guys" thread. With the Mississippi floods threatening the spillways what level of repairs will be needed after the floods subside? Just a question about repair guesstimates, probable disruptions and general effect on the economy.

By Obamas definition of stimulous this should stimulate the economy. However we know this to be untrue.

 

[william the wie]

I'm more concerned about the reassuring comments being made about the spillways not giving way. Levees and spillways south of Baton Rouge giving way is not a major immediate problem for the rest of the country but giving way north of Baton Rouge will screw up the economy from from southern Alberta to the Gulf and western New York to eastern Idaho. How long will it take to straighten that out? And how bad are likely knock on effects?

The spillways are designed for the flow they can take in. The real fear is that not enough flow will be diverted soon enough, and the mainline levees will start failing. That is the real issue.

So much of the media reporting on this is either wrong, very wrong, or completely wrong. The structure they talk the most about, Old River Control, is actually 4 structures, all desgined to keep the MR in its current basin. The use of spillways is not only to prevent levee failure, but to keep this structure intact.

Quadruple redundancy is good, how about Morganza?