working the way it was intended to work. in 1927 we displaced more than 600,000 people, and this is a whole system, not just morganza or bonnie carey, it s the entire levee system with its control structures that have been put in place. there are some hard choices that have been made in the process and not everybody bears the same burden. right now it s working the way it was designed to work which after katrina it s nice to see a levee system do that. well said. general honore, the morganza can handle up to 36,000 cubic feet of water per second and the bonnie kar i can handle up to 250,000 cubic feet of water per second. is it enough? based on current projections. things can change. if we have a failure, if there s something we don t catch, the levee guys are doing a good job recounting those levees. if we have a break, for instance, history has shown we ve had seven or eight breaks between baton rouge and morganza in the last 100 years.
photos michael jackson wanted to have destroyed. good evening everyone. i m don lemon. the news starts right now. the legendary mississippi river is rewriting history tonight. for the first time in nearly 40 years the morganza spillways a opened today to divert the swollen river into the atchafalaya basin. it s a pressure valve to relieve the threat of flooding in beige and new orleans, but it means tiny communities could be under many feet of water and force thousands of people from their homes. this is what it looked like back in 1973. the one and only time this spillway had to be opened. the fact this spillway has not been opened in four decades underscores how serious this situation has become. for the next hour we ll be joined by general rousel honore, a high drydrologist and key correspondents. we want to get to ed lavandera wh was there when the spillway was opened earlier this afternoon. reporter: don, the first gate of the morganza spillway has been opened. you c