Paging Jackie Clarkson

In the year of our lord 2011, during the most recent time of river flood crisis, one New Orleans City Councilperson proposed a rather pro-active strategem.

Officials keeping watch over New Orleans levees have not reported any errant vessels on the river, though the matter is a top priority.

"One of the big issues that we're facing is motor vessles, barges in particular, we need to keep them off the levees," Susan Macclay of the West Bank levee authority said Thursday during a news conference.

All vessels are supposed to stay 180 feet away from the slope pavement, she said.

City Councilwoman Jackie Clarkson on Thursday barge owners and operators who don't moor their vessels that the city will sink all untethered vessles.

"We can't afford to have barges breaking loose, breaking levees," she said.

We never got any details about how Jackie's barge defense system was supposed to work. Would she fire the cannon at them from Washington Artillery Park? Are there still damnable torpedoes in the river somewhere?  It's probably classified.  But somebody knows the answer and we may have need of it now. According to Channel 6 we are already under attack. 

A dock along the Mississippi River was damaged Thursday when a pair of unloaded barges struck it. The dock is located at the Piety Street Wharf. The barges remain intact. Damages done to the dock are still being assessed.

Hopefully whatever naval forces we have to scramble aren't built by Metal Shark.  Because it looks like Plan A for taming the river is off again.

The Army Corps of Engineers has delayed opening the Morganza Spillway above Baton Rouge indefinitely in response to slightly better forecasts for water heights at the spillway and upriver, corps spokesman Ricky Boyett said Thursday (June 6).

But officials warned that future rainfall could still force the corps to operate the emergency structure to move part of the Mississippi’s high-water flow into the Atchafalaya River during the next two months.

“Operation of the structure will be a consideration until the Mississippi River crests and begins to fall,” said a press release issued by the corps. “The expected crest at Morganza is on about June 15th, but it will then remain high for two weeks or more.”

“The Army Corps of Engineers only intends to operate the structure when needed as to not put additional water into the Atchafalaya Basin,” the news release said.

Okay well we will stand by for whenever that is.  Maybe if the levees keep failing upriver, the problem will take care of itself.  
 

We have to do something

They delayed the Morganza again. 

Enough pussyfooting around with all the knobs and dials on the river. Time to call close enough good enough and let it all rip. I mean we have to do something, right?  What is the worst that could happen?

Scientists don't yet know what precise weather conditions could overwhelm the Old River complex, but anything stronger than the 2011 event would present a "real risk," and the risk will continue to increase as more sediment is deposited in the channel, Xu said.

“These changes diminish the river’s capacity to carry water on its current course. When sections of the river’s floor rise to a sufficient point, a sudden increase in flow — perhaps from a flood — could drive the Mississippi River to overwhelm the control structure and adopt a new path, potentially causing the Mississippi to be captured by the Atchafalaya,” his research summary states.

Okay okay but there's too much nerdy engineering in all that.  Tell us about something else bad that could happen.

NEW ORLEANS, La. (WVUE) - As hurricane season approaches, one expert said he worries what kind of impact high water in the Mississippi River will have in an active hurricane.

Though river levels will likely be lower during the peak of the season, Alex Kolker -- a coastal sciences professor at Tulane and LSU’s Marine Consortium -- said storms still pose a threat.

High river levels this year have forced an unprecedented opening of the Bonne Carre Spillway and, likely, the Morganza.

“This river is managed for river floods and it’s managed relatively well. The one thing it’s not managed for is if you were to have a hurricane and a river flood at the same time,” Kolker said. “A high river like we have now, in late August, that would be a bigger concern.”

Yeah but that's not very likely to be something we are gonna have to worry about in June, right?  Right?

Ugh! Look, fine. Everyone, let's all do our civic duty to be as pro-actively freaked out as possible because that is supposed to help for some reason. But can we also maybe try and live our lives in the meantime?   LaToya says we are too busy in the summer hunkering down and whatnot to have a parade but I would like to see the evidence for this.

The Mystic Krewe of Nyx has responded to New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell's decision to nix plans to host a summer parade.

On Monday, Cantrell rejected the proposed July parade citing "public safety resources in the middle of hurricane season."

Nyx leadership announced plans for the parade in May. The 8-year-old, all-female krewe wanted to become the first major krewe in Carnival history to have two parades in a single year. They would have rolled on July 27.

That's not a good reason to deny the permit.  A better reason to deny it would be because, even though there are plenty of parades that happen outside of Carnival season all year long, including several during the summer months, this particular organization is captained by a con artist who is constantly looking for ways to leverage her position into one ponzi scheme after another. The summer parade was probably one of those.

As of this writing, the Freret "summer strut" is apparently still on. My guess is that is because a second line style event is subtle enough to get a pass while Nyx had a big attention-getting downtown parade with Kern floats and stuff planned.  A lot of Julie Lea's problems tend to issue from her never having learned to sophisticate up the corruption.

Anyway, just saying we don't have enough cops during the summer is nonsense. The State Troopers in the Quarter are so bored, in fact, they are shooting people for minor traffic violations. And, really, what would it hurt to pull a few NOPD off of curfew enforcement duty for a day? According to almost every expert rounded up in this story, the curfew does more harm than good anyway.  They tried telling that to the Cantrell people but were defeated by logic.

A 2016 article in The Guardian also raised the problem of curfew laws increasing police interaction with youth that isn’t always positive. "It was really kind of scary to have them treat you like a hardened criminal,” a 19-year-old who was stopped for a curfew violation told the newspaper: 

New Orleans officials said they are aware of the research questioning the effectiveness of curfew laws, but Stevens said officials concluded the enforcement is in the best interest of public safety.

“Right now, it’s important that we do something, and we have to do something with a sense of saving our young people to the streets,” Stevens said. “One way is to start to let them know laws are in place. You need to abide by the law that’s in place.”

"We have to do something"

"Ok but that thing you are doing is ineffective and probably harmful."

"But we have to do something."

QED

If the Corps of Engineers had that attitude, we'd have opened Morganza weeks ago.

The shitty season

The shitty part of the year is here, folks.  Walk outside and suck in a deep breath of the hot stagnation we like to call summer. It all showed up right on time today.



According to four hundred something important persons assembled for the city's annual Everybody Look The Fuck Out press conference, the 2019 hurricane season is supposed to be an "average" one.  Which is to say, it's probably bad.

Ben Schott, the meteorologist who heads the National Weather Service office in Slidell, said this hurricane season — June 1 through Nov. 30 — is predicted to be an “average season.” However, he urged residents to make a plan should a storm hit the city.

“It only takes one,” he said, a sentiment echoed by several other speakers.

But before we can get our heads around the average shitty summer we still have to deal with the above average shittiness of this spring. 

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Crews were making a “last ditch effort” Saturday (June 1) to save low-lying parts of a small Arkansas city from floodwaters pouring through a breached levee. Downstream, authorities warned people to leave a neighborhood that sits across the swollen river from the state capital.

The Arkansas River, which has been flooding communities for more than a week, tore a 40-foot hole Friday in a levee in Dardanelle, a city of about 4,700 people roughly 100 miles upstream from Little Rock. On Saturday, Mayor Jimmy Witt said officials don’t think a temporary levee being constructed will stop the water from flooding the south side of Dardanelle, but he hopes it will buy time for residents of as many as 800 threatened homes to prepare.

The Arkansas breach comes as the Corps of Engineers makes last minute changes to its plan to open the Morganza Spillway.  They were going to do it tomorrow but decided instead to wait until Thursday. Likely the public feedback had something to do with that.  Farmers, fishers and residents in the Atchafalaya basin are rightfully concerned about all that fresh water that's "not so fresh." Still, it's a tight needle to thread. I mean, yikes!

The Baton Rouge Police Department shared bird’s-eye view images Thursday night (May 30) showing the swollen Mississippi River encroaching on the levee near LSU’s campus. The agency posted the photos the same day President Donald Trump declared an emergency in Louisiana allowing for federal assistance for those impacted by river flooding in certain parishes.

It's very high.

On Friday I took a ride downtown to look at the high river in the Quarter. It's very high.



But it's not scary high.  Not in the way those Baton Rouge pictures are. It's actually a little bit lower than it was in 2011 which was the last time we were this skeeved out by it. Here's basically the same location then.



Of course the Bonnet Carre has been open (for the second time this year) a few weeks so, we had better hope the water is under control to some degree down here. I also rode up to The Fly on Friday just to see it all. It's very high. But not scary high.







 

That's not going to stop anyone from worrying about all sorts of things.  

There’s been little research into the likely effects of a significant storm while the Mississippi is near its flood stage, in part because the river’s level usually begins to drop from its swollen spring state well before strong hurricanes typically develop.

This year, however, the river is expected to remain at 16 feet above sea level at New Orleans’ Carrollton gauge, just a yard or so below the lowest points of the river levees, well into the summer.

As climate change pushes rainfall totals higher across the United States, prompting earlier and more severe storms, some observers are calling for more study of how serious a threat such a scenario could pose going forward.

Welcome to the shitty season.  

Tantric Morganza

They're holding back just a little bit longer.

The much-anticipated opening of the Morganza Spillway has been postponed as authorities juggle changing forecasts, a river elevation threatening to overtop the structure, and a hesitance to put any more water in the Atchafalaya floodway than is necessary.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Thursday announced the Morganza Spillway's gates north of Baton Rouge on the Mississippi River will not begin opening Sunday as expected, but will be pushed back to June 6.

Probably dealing with an understandably panicked response from people who have to get out of the way.  

Morganza

Just a few weeks ago they said they weren't going to have to open it.  Turns out maybe the river is deciding for them.

Boyett said that current river forecasts project the river overtopping the structure in two weeks, and that water at that height would render the spillway unusable. The Corps would prefer to open it a few days earlier to allow a controlled release. That would entail filling the basin with a foot of water per day for two or three days to give wildlife a chance to escape.

They really really do not want to have to open Morganza.  It flows through land that people have gotten used to using for farming, hunting camps, and even transient homes in some places. It's serious when they decide to do this. And this year's river flood is as serious as it's ever been.

The Mississippi River has set flood records this year. Rainy conditions across the country have dumped gallons upon gallons of water into tributaries that feed into the Mississippi, which has been in flood stage at Baton Rouge since early January. The persistent high water has broken the record set in 1927 for most days in flood stage at the capital city. Though hemmed in by the levees, the river is forecast to remain in flood stage well into summer.

Summer flooding isn't unheard of but usually the river doesn't stay so high that late into the year.  Hurricane Season is right around the corner. At least that's expected to be "near normal." Of course, that's plenty bad enough.

Another day in paradise

Morganza Floodway flow underestimated; several bays closed to adapt

After learning it had incorrectly estimated the flow of Mississippi River water through the Morganza Floodway structure, the Army Corps of Engineers on Tuesday and Wednesday closed three of the structure’s bays, slightly reducing the gush of floodwater into the Atchafalaya River Basin.

Something about that phrase, "incorrectly estimated the flow of the Mississippi River water through the Morganza" that makes the ears perk up.

Also this.

New Orleans criminal court files retrieved from landfill

Because... sure.

Flood ending?

3 bays closed on Morganza Floodway

It's like the rainbow after the flood

T-P: When swollen Mississippi River subsides, crawfish will be easy pickins

Their abundance largely will be due to the added oxygen in the waterway after decomposing vegetation has been flushed out, said Robert Romaire, a Louisiana State University AgCenter professor who studies crawfish management.

Randy Bourque, 34, already noticed a difference while out in the river Thursday morning. He was out to extend the lines on his traps to accommodate the rising tide.

“During Easter, the Holy Week, it was like a sewage pit out there, smelling, completely black,” Bourque said. “Now everything’s clean, and them crawfish is shedding and getting pretty.”

Higher oxygen levels will keep much more crawfish alive longer than during a typical year, and as more water is expected to remain in the river for longer, the crustaceans also will have much longer to grow, according to Romaire.

While Romaire anticipates a possible wild crawfish season extending as late as August — typically it ends in June — Bourque dreams, “Man, I hope we can fish the whole year.”

So hey great. Crawfish bumper crop. It'll be great news to see the price of crawfish going down just as every other commodity affected by the floodway gets more expensive. So if you're sitting on that design for crawfish based substitute for soybeans, corn, sugar, or maybe even a crawfish powered automobile, now would be a good time to speak up.

Flooding right along

Via WBRZ this is amateur video of deer running out of the way of the floodwaters 4 miles south of Morganza

Stream too heavy for Corps to handle

That is, the Corps' Ustream viewer is apparently overloaded. Try WWLTV.

Live stream

Again, the pun, it kills me.

Army Corps Ustream here.

Also WBRZ has the press conference here.

And now they're done.

Corps is planning to open the first bay on the Morganza today at 3:00 PM. They expect to eventually have it open to about 1/4 of its capacity and to leave it open for three or four weeks.

Yesterday the Corps published this map of the expected rate at which floodwaters will arrive in the Atchafalaya basin.

Morganza to open "sometime after 2:30"

But first, the obligatory press conference. Then maybe a blessing or someone could sing the national anthem or something.

The Army Corps of Engineers has scheduled news conferences at 1 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. today to discuss opening the Morganza Floodway to divert water from the swollen Mississippi River into the Atchafalaya Basin, greatly reducing the risk of catastrophic flooding downriver in Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

No time has been set for opening the spillway about 45 miles northwest of Baton Rouge, but it is not expected to happen until after both news conferences, a corps spokeswoman said.

Update: Front of NOLA.com right now:



Note the "Morganza is open" bit is a broken link.

Failure to read my own blog

Blogger must have had to wipe out the most recent posts in order to fix whatever the problem was. I don't actually remember what they said so I'm not putting them back. I did have a longish draft that I'm not happy about losing but oh well.

Meanwhile, lookout below.

Update: Oh shit. There was all sorts of Meffert stuff as well as Jackie Clarkson threatening to sink ships on the river. Dammit. Way to wipe out a fun week in New Orleans, Blogger.

One more thing. I did notice that AZ had a funny and long commentary on the Meffert trial up yesterday. I hope he preserved it somewhere so it can be restored.

Update: Thanks to Bullet's Google reader, we've managed to restore the all-important Jackie post. See below.