Stay updated with breaking news from Nt the rising. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.
Right now, the downtown area is high and dry, but what we re seeing is the tributaries on the mississippi. they can t empty their water into this river anymore because it is so high. so those rivers have been backing up, causing flooding in different parts around memphis, some isolated areas. it has been covering some roads, it has been getting to some neighborhoods. we have seen a couple of trailer parks almost completely inundated and at this point, we got a little over 300 people in shelters and they re probably going to be there for a little while, brooke, because it only took days for this water to come into memphis. it will take weeks for it to go out. now, you mentioned before there is this huge barbecue festival, right? you think of memphis, barbecue, beale street. how close is that water encroached upon those areas and what are they doing about the huge festival coming into town? well, may is a huge tourism time for memphis. and that barbecue festival is ....
There will be pesticides, fertilizer, and there are sewage treatment plants over top, and septic tanks and stuff in that water that you don t want to think about. and that stuff is going into lake pontchartrain, because they opened up the bonnet carre spillway, and when that gets in there, it should be brakish and salty, but now all of this is going to try to get out, and some won t make it, and i believe there is going to be an algae bloom like no other, but for the people in louisiana and that is going to be a big story. and we will talk about that in a matter of minutes, but in terms of rain, is there a respi respite? yes, they are done. we take two to three inches of water to make another foot higher and memphis is done, and everybody below memphis from memphis to the gulf of mexico, they are not done, because the ....
Are we to assume from what he s saying that the potential flooding no, the seepage could come from a breach in the levee where it would wash the levee out, it would be a catastrophic flood going one way or the other. also, it could go under in what is called a sand boil or mud boil, and it is easy to look up on google, find out what it is, pressure of water forces itself under the levee, under the other side and it will wash out if not watched and checked. thank you for clarifying. chad myers, thank you. they were the generation that was going to change the world and do everything little bit different and a little better. now those baby boomers are retiring and will they do that better too? up next, one boomer who is living the good life on a basic budget. building up our wireless network all across america. we re adding new cell sites. increasing network capacity, and investing billions of dollars to improve your wireless network experience. ....
Closer. find out why you can soon get relief at the pump very soon. who gets bin laden s bounty? several politicians offering up their own idea on how to split it? welcome back to cnn newsroom. let s talk mississippi river. right now, it is the deepest it has been, near memphis, in 74 years. and keep in mind, it has not reached its peek yet. the water is flowing past enough, listen to this, to fill a football stadium, 44 feet deep in one single second. that has cities and towns from memphis to new orleans bracing for the worst case scenario. we have already watched the u.s. army corps of engineers blow up that levee, flooding some 130,000 acres of form land in missouri to save a town in illinois. now, today they opened floodgates just northwest of new orleans. the goal there is to calm the rising river and reduce all the ....
Corps of engineers and he joins us now. tom, let s start with the bonnet carre spillway northwest of new orleans and can you explain to us what a lot of rus learning what the spillway does so what is the goal essentially here? well, several spillways and floodways that have been designed within the mississippi river and tributary system to offer relief flowage of the main stem of the mississippi river to impact the stages not only below the stillway or the floodway but above it. in bonnet carre in particular, it is designed to alleviate the stages between the bonnet carre and the gulf of mexico. maximum, it is designed to carry is about 250,000 cubic feet per second. so less pressure then on the levees around new orleans, thus, diverting the water through pontchartrain to the gulf, but ....