Morganza to open within 24 hours

Fallout maps here.

This afternoon I took some more pictures down by the French Quarter riverfront where the water has clearly come down about a half a foot in the past few days.

Here is the river gauge at the Natchez steamboat landing. The glare is a bit much but the gauge is stained up to about the 16 ft mark. The water below it has recently come down.





In 1927 an unelected cabal of New Orleans banking and business interests decided to have the levee dynamited below the city at Caernarvon thus flooding out people in Plaquemines and St. Bernard. It wasn't necessary to do this, of course, but the cabal couldn't pass up the opportunity to demonstrate to out of town investors that the city's fathers would do whatever it takes to protect their money.

And that shouldn't surprise anyone who pays attention. In the wake of last year's disaster, for example, the city fathers behaved much the same way by making image their primary concern. We'd like to think the same kind of thinking doesn't bleed into the Corps' decision matrix regarding the spillway but these things are never so neat.