using bonnie carey, but no one can give you 100% surety we won t have a failure. why? because there s things happening underneath that water that you can t see and underneath that levy. even though we have the strongest levees we ever had, there s a possibility we could have a failure. there is a possibility. i got to ask you this just on a personal note. i m being honest here. when you said port allen. my mom is in port allen. she lives there. is there a possibility of flood or breach there? the breach, the most probable place based on history is between port allen and the little town of morganza. there have been eight or nine breaks in the levee there in the last 100 years. that is the most vulnerable area right now. south of baton rouge, that would
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 kari 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. if that was the break and flood poured out, then that becomes the game changer. port allen.
i m going to walk over here and talk to you, don, and we re looking at that video of the morganza spillway. you said to me earlier how has that affected new orleans? well, the good news is it s actually relieving some of that potential stress. now, we have a little science experiment for you. hopefully you can see this. we have some rice. this actually represents the bonnie carey. we opened that last week. the smaller spillway. scoop that for me. that represents 250,000 cubic feet per second. now, this one, this is the morganza and i m going to make a mess, don. water is going to spill like that anyway. the red line indicates actually the top of the levee. by taking this all out you can see that the line is going to fall back down, it s going to be back below flood stage. that s with both of them. this has had an immediate effect but it s going to affect so many other people who live in that basin. you know that so. good explanation. thank you. our meteorologist her
so what we actually need is to get the river back into that landscape in a controlled way but where it can actually nourish the marshes and swamps that protect new orleans and so many other things from things like hurricane katrina. so, we have to realize that this river is a part of this coast, and, you know, that it s a tool as well as a source of trouble. general, i m going to bring you back in again. this flooding event might last into the summer you said. i got to ask you can the levees hold that long? well, a lot of investment has been made into the levees with the riffraff, with concrete being poured against them in the most dangerous areas. we are going to be at risk. and the corps is working hard to minimize that risk by keeping the pressure using morganza and using bonnie carey, but no one
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