4 ms·

America's Achilles' heel: the Mississippi River's Old River Control Structure

74 points by cypherpunks01 15y ago

dreww 15y ago
I posted this link yesterday - it is a well-written expose on a massive engineering product, that I didn't know anything about.
jws 15y ago
Key point: The Mississippi would rather not go through New Orleans anymore, it only does so because the Corp of Engineers forces it to. That apparatus is about to get a severe test.
redwood 15y ago
Amazing
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
ahi 15y ago
I think they're opening the Morganza spillway around 2:30 CT today. http://www.ustream.tv/channel/morganza http://www.ustream.tv/channel/morganza
- javert 15y ago
  People in the chat are now saying 3 CT.
anigbrowl 15y ago
This doesn't sound promising: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/14/us-flooding-states-idUSTRE74D1L420110514 http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/14/us-flooding-states...
jerf 15y ago
Anyone know what the long-term decade-scale plan is? Sooner or later we have to let the river move, because if I understand this correctly, over time it simply becomes arbitrarily harder to force through the same channel, without bound.
- wglb 15y ago
  Whatever the plan, expecting successful negotiation with the river seems unrealistic.
- rrrazdan 15y ago
  I thinks a water storage dam to periodically flush the river would keep the river in its present course much longer.
MaxGabriel 15y ago
Huh, actually the Old River Control Structure being damaged and creating a massive disaster was the premise of an xkcd post, and the alt-text is about Jeff Masters having read good analysis on disaster scenarios http://xkcd.com/748/ http://xkcd.com/748/
- skorgu 15y ago
  And a followup blog post recently: http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/05/08/michael-bays-scenario/ http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/05/08/michael-bays-scenario/
mturmon 15y ago
If you enjoyed this, you would enjoy reading the extended article by John McPhee about the control structure, linked to in the article above: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1987/02/23/1987_02_23_039_TNY_CARDS_000347146 http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1987/02/23/1987_02_23_039_T... This and 2 other essays by McPhee were collected into a book, "The Control of Nature". The other essays, also quite long, were about debris flows in the LA basin, and about stopping an Icelandic volcanic flow which threatened a town and a port by spraying it with sea water. It's a fantastic book. http://www.johnmcphee.com/controlofnature.htm http://www.johnmcphee.com/controlofnature.htm

74 points by cypherpunks01 15y ago

dreww 15y ago

I posted this link yesterday - it is a well-written expose on a massive engineering product, that I didn't know anything about.

jws 15y ago

Key point: The Mississippi would rather not go through New Orleans anymore, it only does so because the Corp of Engineers forces it to. That apparatus is about to get a severe test.

redwood 15y ago

Amazing

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

ahi 15y ago

I think they're opening the Morganza spillway around 2:30 CT today. http://www.ustream.tv/channel/morganza http://www.ustream.tv/channel/morganza

javert 15y ago
People in the chat are now saying 3 CT.

anigbrowl 15y ago

This doesn't sound promising: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/14/us-flooding-states-idUSTRE74D1L420110514 http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/14/us-flooding-states...

jerf 15y ago

Anyone know what the long-term decade-scale plan is? Sooner or later we have to let the river move, because if I understand this correctly, over time it simply becomes arbitrarily harder to force through the same channel, without bound.

wglb 15y ago
Whatever the plan, expecting successful negotiation with the river seems unrealistic.
rrrazdan 15y ago
I thinks a water storage dam to periodically flush the river would keep the river in its present course much longer.

MaxGabriel 15y ago

Huh, actually the Old River Control Structure being damaged and creating a massive disaster was the premise of an xkcd post, and the alt-text is about Jeff Masters having read good analysis on disaster scenarios http://xkcd.com/748/ http://xkcd.com/748/

skorgu 15y ago
And a followup blog post recently: http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/05/08/michael-bays-scenario/ http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/05/08/michael-bays-scenario/

mturmon 15y ago

If you enjoyed this, you would enjoy reading the extended article by John McPhee about the control structure, linked to in the article above: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1987/02/23/1987_02_23_039_TNY_CARDS_000347146 http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1987/02/23/1987_02_23_039_T... This and 2 other essays by McPhee were collected into a book, "The Control of Nature". The other essays, also quite long, were about debris flows in the LA basin, and about stopping an Icelandic volcanic flow which threatened a town and a port by spraying it with sea water. It's a fantastic book. http://www.johnmcphee.com/controlofnature.htm http://www.johnmcphee.com/controlofnature.htm