no, i think we all live with this potential and this is what this whole floodway system is for. i wouldn t want to live any place else, but that s part of what comes with it. certainly, this is a floodway and built as a floodway. no, there was no, that decision was made way back in 1928 and the 30s all of those after the 27 flood. this was the design. from that perspective, that s what it is here for. it s here to provide that relieve valve for the river. this is where the water level reached in 73. 73. this is part of the wall that held it back. that s correct. and, t.j., the most important thing right now for officials here in south central louisiana is to get people out of the path of the water. they ve been going through a lot of these small towns that are in the path of the water, urging them all to evacuate. we ve seen that in places where people have been literally packing up every belonging they have into moving trucks and vans and trailers to get out of town. t.j
problem is that this isn t going to go down for weeks, don. i know we re talking about the pressure that we re seeing right now. it s the same pressure that s going to be there for seven days. sure, something can hold that s made of dirt for 24 hours, but can it hold for 124 hours? can it hold for 240 hours before something lets go? i think we re going to have some events. but hopefully, the army corps will be able to take care of those events and not have catastrophic failures and people scrambling at 3:00 in the morning with sirens going off and police driving through the towns saying you must evacuate not. the levee is broken. you can t have that. that s the panic. that s the could you think of the people on the other side of the levee, what they have to think about every night when they go to bed? you can t have that. the army corps is in control right now. and so far, this is a controlled disaster. and this is what they re doing right now. they re making another disaster for the
want to give them a chance to get to high ground. more importantly, human impact. we want folks to understand water is coming their way. we want to maintain the integrity of the structure. we don t want scouring behind the structure. we have a slow opening. we anticipate opening a few more tomorrow. from there on whatever the river needs, that s what we ll get. heather: let s talk about that human element. how quickly will the water rise? do you know have all the people evacuated? did you have facilities where these people can go? we work closely with the state of louisiana, the state police, louisiana national guard and local officials. we ve told them our predictions on where we think this water will be after 24, 48 hours. if your local officials and law enforcement officials tell you to evacuate, you better heed their advice. before we opened up this floodway we confirmed with the
state emergency operations center they had again through and done door-to-door searches in the area of the floodway that is impacted today. we are confident that the state and officials have taken the necessary precautions. heather: this is going to submerge 3,000 square miles un25 feet of water affecting 25,000 people. how long will the gates be open? when will the water levels crest? when can people expect them to go back down? as you said, we opened up one bay today. today is only the 14th. we are not supposed to see a crest until the 23rd, 24th. then the crest is supposed to last up to 10 days. 10 days from now and then 10 days of a crest and however long it takes to recede this structure could be in operation for the better part of three, four weeks. at that point, that s due to the monumental water and the record floods that we are
opened? we are at the 2:30 central time press conference here. we expect to taupe the gates shortly thereafter. shortly after this. which means people in these seven parishes that will be affected, how certain or confident are you in knowing that everyone will be safe? we ve been working with the louisiana state police and national guard and all the local enforcements. everyone knows. they ve been doing a great job of of informing the citizens of the potential for flood iing. what kind of flooding are we talking about here? are these people going to lose everything? well, first of all, it s called the floodway for a reason. it s a floodway. there are areas that are not