US authorities were preparing on Friday to open up a major floodgate to release pressure from the swollen Mississippi River, in a bid to save urban centres from historic flooding as rising waters swept south.
The US Army Corps of Engineers said it could open Louisiana’s Morganza Spillway as early as this weekend to halt devastating flood waters from slamming Louisiana’s major cities, and easing the Mississippi’s flow as it approaches the Gulf of Mexico.
“Baton Rouge and New Orleans will flood if we don’t open that spillway,” retired general Russel Honore, best known for leading the military response to the 2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster, warned on CNN.
The river, currently cresting upstream in Arkansas, is set to eclipse the high water records set in the epochal floods of 1927.
Near its height, the Mississippi town of Vicksburg is expecting a forecasted 17.5m crest on May 19, topping the 17.3m historic crest set 84 years ago this month, according to data from the National Weather Service.
But opening the Morganza Spillway, officials warned, would release the river onto thousands of hectares of farmland and rural towns, prompting warnings of flash floods from forecasters and urgent evacuation orders from state houses in Louisiana and Mississippi.
The worst floods to hit the central United States in more than 70 years have already swallowed up thousands of homes, farms and roads in Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi.
Heavy rains last month filled rivers and creeks already swollen from the melting of a thick winter snow pack, and which are now backing up because the Mississippi is so full. — AFP