Mississippi River threatens more Midwest levees.

[erynthered]

I wonder if the levees in New Orleans will hold up when it gets there. This has been such a huge catastrophe at so many different levels.

 

The first link is a video of a levee breaking. The other one is text of the flooding.

 

 

 

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/06/19/m...tml#cnnSTCVideo

 

 

 

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/06/19/m...html#cnnSTCText

[Pete]

That is so sad. The midwest keeps getting hammered with storms too. Hopefully Mother Nature goes easy on them for a awhile. They certainly need a break from the rain

[Pulled Hammies]

I believe the floodplain south of Cairo Missouri widens out and should not pose a threat to New Orleans. I worked with the USGS during the 1993 floods. Here is one of the reports that came about.

 

Here are some Landsat Thematic Mapper Satellite scenes before and after from 1993

[ExiledInIllinois]

I believe the floodplain south of Cairo Missouri widens out and should not pose a threat to New Orleans. I worked with the USGS during the 1993 floods. Here is one of the reports that came about.

 

Here are some Landsat Thematic Mapper Satellite scenes before and after from 1993

 

It does... I think that lessen was first learned in 1927 on the Lower Mississippi. Anyway, the more that break up north, the more the breaks act as a "pressure relief" and the flooding further south gets lessened.

 

Like I said in the other thread Eyrn... In 1927 they actually breached the levee above New Orleans and flooded the less fortunate in I think Plaquemine and St. Bernard Parishes... This relieved pressure on the levee at New Orleans and saved the city. They gave residents a couple days to pack what they wanted and leave. They also promised to pay the residents (which were mostly underclass Whites and Blacks) reparations which afterwards reneged on.

 

You wonder why after Katrina people thought that they blew the levee on purpose.

 

Again... I don't think that any DIRECTLY maintained levee by the federal gov't has ever failed. It is usually some other entity that mires up the works or doesn't maintain things. I do think that the fed should monitor and mandate better up keep in these levee districts.

[mead107]

If they did not put up so many levees up stream the flooding would not be as bad down stream .

[Lori]

If they did not put up so many levees up stream the flooding would not be as bad down stream .

...but it would be worse upstream. 45 years ago, the Corps of Engineers drowned several small towns on the PA/NY border when they built the Kinzua Dam to regulate water flow in Pittsburgh.

 

Who gets to make that decision?

[mead107]

Could be we build to near the water . It is all flat along that whole area .

[Lori]

My hometown wouldn't exist if the Allegheny River didn't cut through this valley; indeed, it was originally called "Canoe Place." I suspect most of the towns involved in this flood are the same way -- built before any roads were cut through the wilderness, when the rivers were the only means of travel.

[ExiledInIllinois]

If they did not put up so many levees up stream the flooding would not be as bad down stream .

 

That is the main highway through th nation (MS)... Still the backbone of commerce. I wonder how places like Dubuque faired, they actually have a seawall type structure that can open and close. Places like Davenport always befuddled me, they choose not to go that option because it looks "ugly."

[Gordio]

It does... I think that lessen was first learned in 1927 on the Lower Mississippi. Anyway, the more that break up north, the more the breaks act as a "pressure relief" and the flooding further south gets lessened.

 

Like I said in the other thread Eyrn... In 1927 they actually breached the levee above New Orleans and flooded the less fortunate in I think Plaquemine and St. Bernard Parishes... This relieved pressure on the levee at New Orleans and saved the city. They gave residents a couple days to pack what they wanted and leave. They also promised to pay the residents (which were mostly underclass Whites and Blacks) reparations which afterwards reneged on.

 

You wonder why after Katrina people thought that they blew the levee on purpose.

 

Again... I don't think that any DIRECTLY maintained levee by the federal gov't has ever failed. It is usually some other entity that mires up the works or doesn't maintain things. I do think that the fed should monitor and mandate better up keep in these levee districts.

 

 

I have a question for you guys with these levees. Why does'nt the government just make the levees higher? I mean, was'nt there just a big flood in the miss river just about 5yrs ago. It is going to happen again. Some scientist came on nightline last night & said that with the increase precipitation caused by the changing environment, people can expect flooding on the miss once every 6 or 7 years now. For years, people knew that if a hurricane ever hit New Orleans straight on & was powerfull enough that the levees would not hold & it would flood the city. Eventually, supposedly intelligent people had to figure a hurrricane was hit NO, but still there was no upgrade to the levees. Am I missing something? One would think just raise the levees & the problem would be solved. Is it too expensive?

[Ramius]

I have a question for you guys with these levees. Why does'nt the government just make the levees higher? I mean, was'nt there just a big flood in the miss river just about 5yrs ago. It is going to happen again. Some scientist came on nightline last night & said that with the increase precipitation caused by the changing environment, people can expect flooding on the miss once every 6 or 7 years now. For years, people knew that if a hurricane ever hit New Orleans straight on & was powerfull enough that the levees would not hold & it would flood the city. Eventually, supposedly intelligent people had to figure a hurrricane was hit NO, but still there was no upgrade to the levees. Am I missing something? One would think just raise the levees & the problem would be solved. Is it too expensive?

 

With regards to New Orleans, you cant simply "build the levees bigger" to make them cat-5 proof. The cost would be astronomically high and many other changes would need to be made (like reworking the canal drainage system). Remember too, the higher you raise the levees, the more force they must be able to withstand from the weight of the water.

 

The best hurricane defense for new orleans is the rapidly receding wetlands in southern La. Rebuilding those will go much further towards better hurricane protection than simply raising the levees.

[Gordio]

With regards to New Orleans, you cant simply "build the levees bigger" to make them cat-5 proof. The cost would be astronomically high and many other changes would need to be made (like reworking the canal drainage system). Remember too, the higher you raise the levees, the more force they must be able to withstand from the weight of the water.

 

The best hurricane defense for new orleans is the rapidly receding wetlands in southern La. Rebuilding those will go much further towards better hurricane protection than simply raising the levees.

 

 

Thanks for the info.

[Fan in San Diego]

Why don't they build a canal from the Mississpi to the Colorado river to relieve the flooding and help out the west coast water shortage ?

[ExiledInIllinois]

Why don't they build a canal from the Mississpi to the Colorado river to relieve the flooding and help out the west coast water shortage ?

 

 

The Upper MI is basically "canalized" w/ a set of over 20 locks and dam... The navigation project in the pools has the navigation channel stablized with series of "wing dams."

 

I suppose they can "concrete" the whole thing... Could image the cost.

 

Communites like Dubuque, IA have a seawall that can open and close during flood events... Places like Davenport, IA choose not to go that root because of "aesthetics" I suppose.

 

I used to work surveying and sounding the Upper MI... In towns all along, there are people who love the Corps and then there are those who totally hate the Corps. One side thinks you are harming the river that their father's worked and played on, the other think you are helping it.

 

It is a juggling act.

 

Mark Twain today and the way we have the river would be rolling over in his grave... Think about it.

[Fan in San Diego]

The Upper MI is basically "canalized" w/ a set of over 20 locks and dam... The navigation project in the pools has the navigation channel stablized with series of "wing dams."

 

I suppose they can "concrete" the whole thing... Could image the cost.

 

Communites like Dubuque, IA have a seawall that can open and close during flood events... Places like Davenport, IA choose not to go that root because of "aesthetics" I suppose.

 

I used to work surveying and sounding the Upper MI... In towns all along, there are people who love the Corps and then there are those who totally hate the Corps. One side thinks you are harming the river that their father's worked and played on, the other think you are helping it.

 

It is a juggling act.

 

Mark Twain today and the way we have the river would be rolling over in his grave... Think about it.

 

I saw on the news that damage is in the billions. How much would the canal cost ? It might be cheaper than getting flooded out all the time !

[ExiledInIllinois]

I saw on the news that damage is in the billions. How much would the canal cost ? It might be cheaper than getting flooded out all the time !

 

 

But, what are you proposing? To concrete wall the whole length? ... It is all ready canalized"

 

The levee system is there in place too.

 

You know how many miles there are? You know how many miles of "backwater" and sloughs that do exist?

 

I think it is up to the community... Like I said about Dubuque v. Davenport.

 

This just points to systematic breakdown of the system, if you don't mind my redundancy... The infrastructure is crumbling around us.

 

This isn't "sexy"...

[ExiledInIllinois]

I would be really surpised if the individual levee districts have strict maintainence plans in place AND actually implemented correctly...??

 

You saw what happened in New Orleans... All you need is one point where someone got lazy, failed to keep the large growth and (God forbid) trees down and wham-o, things can go to pot quickly.

 

I am not saying it truly is the root cause (lax maint)... Makes on wonder what goes on...

[Ramius]

Why don't they build a canal from the Mississpi to the Colorado river to relieve the flooding and help out the west coast water shortage ?

 

probably something about the canal having to be 1,000 miles long and rise anywhere from 5,000-7,000 feet in elevation.

[ExiledInIllinois]

Kinda long... Enjoy... What I have been saying all along... Here is some information:

 

The levees along the Mississippi River offer a patchwork of unpredictable protections. Some are tall and earthen, others aging and sandy, and many along its tributaries uncataloged by federal officials.

 

The levees are owned and maintained by all sorts of towns, agencies, even individual farmers, making the work in Iowa, Illinois and Missouri last week of gaming the flood — calculating where water levels would exceed the capacity of the protective walls — especially agonizing.

 

After the last devastating flood in the Midwest 15 years ago, a committee of experts commissioned by the Clinton administration issued a 272-page report that recommended a more uniform approach to managing rising waters along the Mississippi and its tributaries, including giving the principal responsibility for many of the levees to the Army Corps of Engineers.

 

Among the committee suggestions that Dr. Galloway said were largely overlooked: a more systematic approach to what the 1994 report described as “a loose aggregation of federal, local and individual levees and reservoirs” on these Midwestern rivers in which, that report said, “many levees are poorly sited and will fail again in the future.”

 

Three of the levees where water broke through or came over the top were built and owned by local people, towns or agencies, and were not certified as meeting federal standards, records show. Four others that overflowed and then had holes break were built and maintained by towns or drainage district boards, but had been certified by federal authorities as meeting their standards.

 

The Army Corps of Engineers built or helped reconstruct the other six, though local authorities now own them and are responsible for their upkeep.

 

For more than a century, people near this river have been trying to hold it back. Levees rise from these banks and the banks of its tributaries in all heights and shapes, many built decades ago by people, towns, groups of farmers.

 

Made of sand, clay, dirt and, in some cases, unknown materials, some levees guard towns, others protect farm fields. There are long, elaborate walls, like one here known as the Sny that runs more than 50 miles down the river. Others, tiny private levees, particularly those on the smaller tributaries of the Mississippi, have long ago been forgotten, and the federal authorities acknowledge that they are uncertain where all of them are.

 

People in the Upper Midwest have been wrestling with the “hodgepodge” of levees, as one Missouri geologist describes the situation, for decades, even as officials in the 1920s designed a more standardized system of protection south of here, along the Mississippi downriver of Cairo, Ill., and all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.

 

After an enormous flood in 1927, the southern stretch of the river was deemed part of a project area, and ordered to have levees designed by the Corps of Engineers. “Those were good levees, all built to a single standard,” said John M. Barry, who wrote “Rising Tide,” a book about the 1927 flood.

 

But the flood had not devastated the Upper Mississippi region to the degree it had in the south, and the political atmosphere, given the enormous price of levee building, left those to the north out of the equation, Mr. Barry said. So people here kept building on their own.

 

In the 1960s and ’70s, there were calls for improvements: In some cases, Corps officials built or rebuilt certain levees (including Canton’s in the 1960s), then handed them back to the local authorities. Federal authorities also inspect and certify some levees as meeting corps standards, a designation that allows communities to receive subsidies if their levees fail.

 

But such certification is not mandatory for all levees. Of more than 200 known levees in this region alone, more than 100, many of them in the Mississippi’s tributaries, have not been certified as meeting the federal standards; they may have poor construction, signs of stress, trees growing on them, animal burrows.

 

All of which has left an odd assortment of levees protecting these towns, even now.

 

“It’s still sort of ad hoc,” said Ron Fournier, of the Rock Island district of the Army Corps of Engineers.

 

Even as people here battled the rising waters last week, the disconnected nature of these levees played out in complicated ways.

 

All around, people tried to raise their levees just a little more, just enough, they hoped, to keep them above water. Atop the levees, they piled sandbags, stone, wood. Town to town, it seemed an arms-race-like battle to go higher. Here in Canton, carpenters spent days hammering a two-foot wooden frame addition to the top of their levee, then padded that with sandbags — tricks they learned from 1993.

 

But a topped-off levee in one town was not without effect on others along the river, some said.

 

“We always flood fight and raise levees during events like this with little or no coordination or regard for the impact it will have on people upstream or across the river,” said Paul A. Osman of the Illinois Office of Water Resources. “When you raise a levee, that water has to go somewhere.”

 

Many experts said it was impossible to know whether a comprehensive levee system might have changed things last week in the areas where water flowed over levees, in the endless corn and soybean fields near Meyer, Ill., or in the trailers and homes near Winfield, Mo. Many of the levees overflowed — as opposed to breaking up or splitting open first; they were simply overwhelmed by a huge amount of water. Some, along open lands, were always expected to overflow at such high water levels.

 

Still, Dr. Galloway said a broad, comprehensive flood management plan — the one presented 14 years ago — would have helped. “Some agricultural levees would still have overflowed,” he said. “But you would substantially have reduced the damage.”

[Fan in San Diego]

probably something about the canal having to be 1,000 miles long and rise anywhere from 5,000-7,000 feet in elevation.

Where there is a will, there is a way. The army of corp of engineers could figure out a way to do it if they really wanted to. They already bring water from the Colorado to California. Sounds about the same challenge. This would relieve flooding and help out west. It's a win - win for everybody. And create jobs as well.