15 May 2011

Floodgates to open to save cities

12:16 pm on 15 May 2011

United States engineers are preparing to flood up to 3 million acres in southern Louisiana in a bid to protect large cities such as Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

The Mississippi River has this year risen to levels not seen in decades, fed by heavy rains and the spring thaw.

To deal with the flood, the Army Corps of Engineers is planning to open the Morganza floodway over the next two days, easing pressure on levees protecting Baton Rouge and New Orleans, the BBC reports.

It will unleash river water through the Atchafalaya River basin, flooding parts of seven parishes in southern Louisiana near the Gulf of Mexico.

Much of the water will end up in swamplands, bayous and backwater lakes but several thousand homes are at risk of flooding and as many as 25,000 people are preparing to leave.

"My message to our people is they don't need to be delaying," Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal said on Thursday. "Move their valuables. Think about where they would go."

It is the first time in 38 years that the Morganza floodway has been opened to cope with severe flooding.