The 'Old River Control' and Atchafalaya another disaster in making

[EVDebs]

"The flood of 1973 was a "40-year event," meaning that one might be expected, on average, every forty years. The inundation heading toward Louisiana on the fringes of Katrina, a Category 5 storm, could produce local flooding on the lower reaches of the river sufficient to allow the Atchafalya to finally capture the Mississippi. "Nothing says capture has to happen at Old River," McPhee was told by a local. "It could happen anywhere the two channels are close enough. It probably will someday."

New Orleans could survive the storm surge of Hurricane Katrina—however devasting—only to be hit with a second economic disaster, if the up-river rain causes the Corps of Engineers to lose their 42-year battle with the river at Old River Control."

from http://paperfrigate.blogspot.com/
scroll down to the John McPhee book The Control of Nature

The Mississippi seems to want to rechannel itself away from New Orleans. Maybe it's time to let nature take its course and rebuild the city on higher ground and at the same time let the Atchafalaya and Mississippi rechannel. This battle against nature has been going on since 1963 costing billions...

What do you DUers say ?

[Selatius]

1. Mother nature will win in the end, period.

One day, the Old River Control will be overcome by the river. It's only a matter time. When man vs. nature, nature wins.

[NMDemDist2]

2. I don't know what's downriver in the Old Channel, but I fear they may

need to let it so take the flooding coming down from Ohio et al
I've been telling hubby all week they may need to blast that dam and let the river go west instead of going to NOLA with the flood waters

[Eloriel]

3. One of the things I heard reported, probably on Monday,

by Sheperd Smith on Fox (I know, yuck), was startling to me. He said ____ Parish (begins with a P) "has been reclaimed by the Atchafalaya River." Obviously, there are people who live there, and they must be in quite dire straits and my heart goes out to them. But my point is that there has apparently been some shifting of the landscape, and it seems to me that kind of thing (a river reclaiming a whole parish) is going to be difficult if not impossible to change.