this system of hef vlevees we h. we re talking about 3,700 miles overall. where the river has crested here in the boot heel of missouri. we re going to zoom in. we already heard about the first levee explosion that took place at bird s point. that was up in missouri. these aren t levees that we re going to explode. these are going to be, like, gateway systems and spillway systems they re going to open up to move that water. the first one, this has already been approved. the bonnet carre spillway. tomorrow morning around 8:00 a.m. they re going to open this up. this is the mississippi river right here. this is lake pontchartrain. when they open this up the water is going to flood into this area and move into lake pontchartrain. the whole idea of this is, yes, to spare new orleans. the flood plan, basically what it s going to do when they open up these gates, they think it s going to help to relieve some of the pressures and stresses as well. waters are still going to be
going on with the levee. reporter: well they re which is just extraordinary. we re at pretty much the missouri/illinois border where the mississippi and ohio rivers meet. and they re both swollen beyond compare. so we re seeing an extraordinary event, for sure. the president has declared this area a major disaster to open up some funds for these folks. yesterday as you mentioned, i went out with the usgs team of scientists to measure the flow, get an up-close look at the levee that was broken. we measured average flow of about 3 million gallons per second of this water pouring into this flood wave. they told me the peak intensity at one point, 14 million gallons of water per second, if you can imagine that. they take these measurements so they can give the army corps of engineers an idea of what s going on to make a decision should we blow or not blow. we saw the northern levee explosion, we had daytime video