Mississippi River Flooding , It Seems too Me !

The other fact to consider is that the Mississippi transports about 500 million tons of sediment into the Gulf of Mexico each year. That means if any project is going to transport that water, it has to keep enough flow and velocity going to keep the sediment suspended or the channel will be blocked by the sediment settling out.

It's easy to armchair engineer some amazing projects until Mother Nature lambasts the idea with reality. Most folks understand the idea of a 100 year flood. Most have never heard of the other floods which are much more serious. Even the Corps of Engineers does not design structures to resist a Probable Maximum Flood (PMF). Those if widespread would be dam busters since the emergency spillways are not designed for those types of floods. The design of water control structures relies on statistics to tell us what flooding potential can produce. We've been collecting good flood data for maybe 100 years. In Europe where they have collected data in some areas for over 600 years, they still gets surprised by floods that exceeed anything they've previously seen. For example in this area we saw a 1,250 year flood on the local river after the construction of a dam on the river upstream.

The lesson to take away is that you can never spend enough money to beat Mother Nature simply due to other needs for the money. That's when you start looking at what's practical based on history. Even then you can't fund those projects.

http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/water/pub...2/Default.aspx

Realistically, the technical issues in resolving the problems are minor compared to the political issues. The entire TVA system is a gristmill dam compared to the Three Gorges dam in China or the huge dam recently built in South America. There is an aquifer near or under much of the flooding area that is in need of replenishment. The problem? Flood water is dirty and silty. Add energy to high speed centrifugal separators and the silt is removed, but the dissolved chemicals remain an issue. Politically, pushing that water into the aquifer would be a disaster. Politically, dealing with the huge piles of silt would be a disaster. Technology is a slave to politics.

I had to chuckle at PrarieOaks response as an innocent minor example of the type of infighting that would occur. Wisconsin is a fair distance from the problem flooding downstream, yet the attitude is not to solve two problems with the single fix of diversion, but let the West deal with the natural lack of carrying capacity on its own.

Perhaps the Chicago River should also be reverted back to the way it was, so Chicago can be foetid floodplain swamp as well. Perhaps the levels of the Great Lakes should be allowed to shift naturally and the use of water fro them be banned. Any real solution will have a strong technical component and will disrupt existing systems. Such is the way we made it to the top of the food chain.

Water is political. It has been that way out West for a couple hundred years at least. It has been that way in New Orleans for years. More and more people have divergent demands on how it is used or not used. If the errors of underestimating and the errors of mismanagement weren't so devastating, the comedy of those actions would be amusing. I still shake my head in disbelief that the water managers in south Florida demanded the lowering of the water level in Lake Okeechobee just before the dry season and then were stunned when they had a water shortage and had to demand people not use water throughout Miami and Ft. Lauderdale.

Rest assured. The flooding will be a mess for years to come. Nothing short of a dictatorship that chopped off the heads of opposition will stop the niggling ankle biting and political infighting that prevent solutions.

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Harry, one of the issues is why water contains sediment. Most folks that have streamside or riverside property want it to look neat. So they spend time and money keeping it neat looking. Some even mow it to the edge of the bank. That means maximum flood velocities, erosion and the continued loss of soil.

It's almost encoded in the DNA to cut down brush and trees along the stream banks. The one thing that lessens flooding and erosion is the first thing folks eliminate when they buy property.

Yep and it should go all the way to Canada. if it floods then no crops or homes at all can be grown. I guess we could buy enough to feed most everybody in the US but the rest can die and make room for those that live in cities further west like -- I can't come up with a place that dose not flood maybe in the Rockies if they live on the top. It would get crowded but they would be safe from floods. But then they have things like volcano or earth quakes.I live in the Ozarks and it floods here some time so it should in the Rockies also.

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God must have loved stupid people because he made so many of them.

Darren, totally agree. South Florida coastline used to be Mangroves. Does this line of reasoning sound familiar?

"King of Swamp Castle:
When I first came here, this was all swamp.

Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show them.

It sank into the swamp.

So I built a second one. And that one sank into the swamp.

So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp.

But the fourth one stayed up. And that's what you're going to get..."

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George Washington did not run and hide.

Not looking for sympathy, nor do I feel we were unwise to buy AND build in a flood plain. Actually, the house isn't built in the flood plain as we built it on the back side of the property at the highest elevation. Most of our 96 acres are in the flood plain though and there was a reason we bought it...we are guaranteed no neighbors since it's illegal to build in a flood plain. That is EXACTLY what we wanted...no neighbors.

We're 45 minutes east of the Mississippi River. Our north property line runs down the middle of a Corp of Engineer canal (the Hickahala Creek) that has steep high levees. Extended heavy rains will cause about half our acreage to flood. The week the tornados hit we had a minor flood (half the corn field flooded) and it wiped out a bit of the driveway and took our mailbox and garbage can. House and barn were high and dry.

Personally, I'd rather deal with fixing the driveway and replacing a mailbox and garbage can than have to deal with neighbors!

We've not experienced any of the flooding they're having in Memphis and Tunica, etc. nor do I expect us to. I've never seen the Hickahala breech the levees, although it's gotten close.

There's not a durn place in the country that isn't affected by some type of bad weather...floods, mudslides, blizzards, tornados, hurricanes, drought, fire, etc. If we evacuated those places affected by weather, where should everyone live? The moon???

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Texican,

Normally I agree with you but this time we are at odds. Farms and swamps coexisted until the technology became available to turn the swamps into farm land. Then the fed's crop supports policies made it profitable to drain the wetlands. Now the farmers are making big bucks because the ethanol production has raised the price of corn over twice what it was. Other grains have risen along with the corn.

What I am saying is that the policies and practices of the past didn't take into account the externalities expense incured by the folks downstream. It is time the farmers started paying for the true costs of their practices. We should use farm policy to motivate them.

Most of the folkes downstream settled their piece of land when it was not subject to annual flooding and I do feel for them. The floods have gotten worse and worse as the sloughs were drained. No way they could have expected this.

From the brown water I see heading down the river, after a rain storm, one would think that more sediment comes off the surface of farm fields, than from stream and river bank erosion.

Why do they call the Mississippi the big muddy. It is the silt that it caries even in drought. So where does it come from? It runes through dirt all the way to the Gulf and picks up silt along the way but in flood it has more. I can't remember hearing it to become blue or not with silt. The Army Corp of Engineers have made rocks along the banks to keep it from widening but they can't do that to the bottom. At the mouth of the river they run dredges all the time to keep it from getting so shallow that it will flood by the volume of the river. I don't know if it is taught in schools but that is the reason. Try to debunk that.

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God must have loved stupid people because he made so many of them.

I am sure this flood and most of the recent floods have nothing to do with the fact of all the concrete that has been poured in all the populated areas and the storm water systems that divert the rain water that hits the concrete into the river system. Nor is the McMansion building in subdivisons that were once cornfields , pastures and woodlots. Surely this wouldn't be a factor would it?

Ok years ago there was much more Barge Traffic on Missouri and Mississippi Rivers.COE did a Good Job of keeping a Deep Channel by a series of Levees and Wing Dikes.

Since Grain production has dropped off there is less need to ship Grain by Barge so the COE sees little use to put money out for the upkeep on this system.

I have helped with evacuation and Sand Bagging with several floods on the Missouri River including the Great Flood of '93.For some reason I find it very hard to believe this flood is worse than that.

big rockpile

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Part of that silt is from the creek that flows through some parts of the place here in central West Virginia. The creek is always loaded with silt unless the water is low and it hasn't rained for quite awhile. The Corps, WV DEP, and two other organisations did a WARRS study on one of the creeks in the county. I was involved in that study in many ways. It definitely proved that in this area the largest amount of sediment that goes into the water comes from streambank erosion.

Most thought logging and gas well drilling were the major sources of that sediment. Not so. It was due to people keeping the riparian areas next to creeks stripped of brush and trees.

If you check the hydrograph at the link I posted, it shows that the Corps is predicting that the flood on the lower Mississippi will exceed that of 1927 which is the current flood of record.

I live near the Grand old Mississippi River, I don`t know anything about the 1927 flood, but the flood of 1965 was the worst here than ever. I live 8 miles from the river and town, in 1965 only way into town was by boat, and all roads flooded 4 miles from town. Farms were in bad shape as most flooded, some got out with their animals and some did not, had one old timer said his neighbor never thought it would get so high, so never moved his cows out. The cows were in the barn belly deep in river water for over a week, they were then shipped for slaughter after the flood waters went down. Same old guy told me he put straw bales down in his chicken house so the chickens would have a dry place to stand, he said the straw bales floated up near two feet. He never lost a chicken and egg production never went down. He hauled eggs into town by boat right down the middle of the highway. We still have lots of sloughs and wet lands, and they are never dry. We also have lots of levees and drainage ditchs and a few pumping areas. But most of the farm ground here gets wet when the river comes up, but is also able to be planted if it goes down just as fast. I think on the most part our area is very conservative when it comes to the me, me, attitude. We look out for ours, but we don`t want to hurt anyone else down stream. I do think farther south of us gets hurt harder than we do, but it all hurts the same. I wish everyone that has to deal with the water all the best and keep dry if you can. > All the best, Marc

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My neighbor and I prove this every heavy rain. (I bought from him.) The beautiful manicured lawn/pine needles on dirt between his large trees gets scored with gulleys and the ditch by the road (he's downstream from me) runs brown with clay from his yard. Where we have let 5 years growth new trees/brambles/brush come up on a property he once kept as manicured as his the water soaks in and the ditch water is crystal clear. We still lose some trees although after 3 a few years back no more tipping at the roots from rain more snapping (esp. the old rotten ones I leave up for the woodpeckers) from wind.

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This is oen of my favorite books. Of course I especially love the riverboat pilots' union tale.

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US Army veteran, military retiree spouse, and military; civilian; British NHS; and VA doctor.

Ya'll apparently knew what you were getting, and found the pluses to outweigh the negatives. Lot a difference between ya'll and folks that don't even think about floods and floodplains, thinking someone else will take care of those issues.

I'd put up with seasonal flooding, if it prevented neighbors from tormenting me...

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Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Seneca
Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival. W. Edwards Deming

Just a matter of where you are.Seen worse flooding I ever had in '93 led to Goverment taking over large Tracks of land here in Missouri mainly because it was no longer Farmable,led to breaking out Levees decided it would ease future flooding.

Kind of like record Tornado outbreak of '03,the record Ice Storm of '07,the record Winter of '84 & '85.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Flood_of_1993

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_200...break_sequence

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/sgf/?n=icestormjan07summary

big rockpile

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I love being married.Its so great to find that one person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.



If I need a Shelter
If I need a Friend
I go to the Rock!

I haven't read any of the replies, but heard from a lady in OK that told me that the Corps of Engineers blew up some dams in southern IL to flood the plains. Didn't make the news last week because of Osama.

Is this true?

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Sounds like we think alike!

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