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 hydrologist 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 can see
water. we really feel for the residents there that are dealing with the flooding and that are going to be dealing with the flooding sometimes the best way is to simply explain it. we re going to go bill nye on this. right about here is where the mississippi river is about here, and this is where it is right now. right now we re at 17 feet and the wall is built to 20 feet. so we ll visualize this as 20 feet. because they opened up the bonnet carre, remember that earlier this week, this one actually is about 250 cubic square feet or feet per second. now, that one is one-third of a cup. if you take that off it doesn t do that much. doesn t do that much, right? i need to do both of them. i guess this is not a recipe. but again, if you fill this up for the morganza, this is, as you can see, 600,000 cubic feet per second and that has already had an effect on the mississippi river in new orleans and now we re seeing it at 17 feet and that s at minor flood stage. so we re hop
biggest cities in louisiana. but it means tiny communities could soon be under many feet of water. this is what it looked like in 1973. the one and only time the morganza spillway had to be opened. there s no guarantee it will even work. the mississippi river is already dangerously high in new orleans. the army corps of engineers is hoping that by diverting water through two spillways will lower the river level and spare the city. so far, the corps says opening the morganza spillway appears to be having the desired effect. the biggest test is still days away, the highest water, hundreds of miles up river. this is greenville, mississippi, that you re looking at right now. a live report from there, and it is being inundated, straight ahead on cnn. let s get right to ed lavandera who was there when the morganza spillway was opened just about three hours ago. ed, tell us about it. ed lavandera is joining us on the phone. ed, can you hear us? reporter: just a while ago, this is