Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Spring Floods

As my Aunt Sandra from Memphis said on Sunday, "Always newsworthy is when the river gets to be one mile wide. It is now three miles wide."


Today it is wider.




Back in the days of my great-grandfather, people on each side of the river patrolled the banks at night during floods, and shot dead anyone they saw in a boat - because the easiest way to prevent flooding on your own side was to blow up the levy on the other side.

(There is some speculation that this year's flood might cause the Mississippi to change its course just north of the Louisiana border and align with the Atchafalaya River.)

2 comments:

Hishighness said...

If anyone still lives in New Orleans they seriously need their head examined.

Yappa said...

I just got back from New Orleans a few days ago - it's one of my favorite places ever, and has a culture of the likes we seldom see in North America.

I take your point, but a lot of the problem is the commercial canals - that and the destruction of the wetlands in the delta.