2011 Mississippi River Spring Floods

[Bandwagon King]

_ Read the report, educate yourself, and stop thinking the river is a drilling rig. It is goverened by the rules of open channel flow which are different. The river has the power to make the path bigger.

And it WAS flowing more than it's capacity, it is not an IF. Again this is not my opinion it is a fact. Go ahead admit you were wrong, it will feel good. _

I am not saying the river did not flow more than its design capacity then. What I am saying is that for it to do so it had to suffer structural damage first. Then the flow rate went above the design for the structure. I don't know because I wasn't there, but I can tell you for a fact if it flowed more than 100% of the design it lost its integrity first & started leaking in places it shouldn't have. They have had 38 years to address this problem & fix & reenforce the structure to not allow it to happen again. You are telling me the egg came first. I got news. There aint no egg with out a chicken to lay it.

[CharlieK]

Great quote:

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.
-Mark Twain

And all of this is one of the main reasons the core watches the FLOW RATE so closely, so as to not destroy the structure keeping the Mississippi river in it's current channel.

But you keep watching river stages and the pressure on the Hydrill and keep us informed......

[jumboragncajun]

_ Read the report, educate yourself, and stop thinking the river is a drilling rig. It is goverened by the rules of open channel flow which are different. The river has the power to make the path bigger.

And it WAS flowing more than it's capacity, it is not an IF. Again this is not my opinion it is a fact. Go ahead admit you were wrong, it will feel good. _

It's no use people!

You can tell him that "design capacity" does not mean "actual capacity" and he will FIND a way to argue it. If you do convince him, he will start the "that's what I have been trying to say all along" statements....or or "once again I've just misspoken, that's not what I really meant" statements....'I knew this already but just didn't mention it' statements....

[Boomer]

CALLING DR. ZAPPI---CALLING DR. ZAPPI----------Man he should have all the kids monitoring this thread----What great info!!!! I feel like I am reading a historical novel before the fact---Kinda Like Rising Tide before it was written and the facts coming out ---keep the discussion going!!!!!! BTW---We should have a little pool on who is correct in their prognostications!!!!

[Bandwagon King]

_ It's no use people!

You can tell him that "design capacity" does not mean "actual capacity" and he will FIND a way to argue it. If you do convince him, he will start the "that's what I have been trying to say all along" statements....or or "once again I've just misspoken, that's not what I really meant" statements....'I knew this already but just didn't mention it' statements.... _

Ok, here's your chance to educate me. I have never read anything concerning the near loss of the ORCS. The knowledge I have is from someone who was there first hand. According to what this person told me, the structure started being undermined from underneath & started washing out below the gates. This caused the structure to lose control of the flow & it to release water at a way higher rate than the actual gates themselves were designed to release. He told me they were hauling in tons of rock & even sank barges in front of the structure to keep the structure from being completely undermined & washing away. Is this a correct accounting or not? I am asking for any corrections you can give me.

As for making a misstatement you may wish to interpret that as a self correction. If you have a problem with that then you are saying that even if I admit that I have not stated something right then I still have too much pride to correct myself, yet you attack me when I do correct myself. In that case there is no reasoning with you sir. If Mr./ Dr. / Prof. Helmut is correct in his theory on flow rates, I will gladly state so on this site. As a point of discussion he is most likely correct just not to the degree stated. The difference is you are flowing a 1/2 mile wide body of water into a 17 mile wide body of water. As you displace the higher level with land, less height, & less width & drain it into a resevoir that continues to increase in area as the height comes up, you will at some point reach a swap where the river will go down at as high, then higher, then much higher rate than the resevoir will come up.

As of this point, looking at the level in Baton Rouge going down now at the same rate that it is coming up in Butte Larose, I would respectfully disagree that more gates should be or need to be open. This would simply exasterbate a problem which appears totally avoidable at this time.

[CharlieK]

They will open more gates if the flow rates dictate it. Period. None of what you are saying is relavent to why they open the gates or not.

[Bandwagon King]

_ They will open more gates if the flow rates dictate it. Period. None of what you are saying is relavent to why they open the gates or not. _

Would you mind showing us the numbers to plug in to get within, say 100,000 CFS of the flow rate so we can then know at which critical point they will be forced to open the flood gates & evacuate the town of Butte Larose.

I mean I can give you the formula. It's been quoted adnausium on this thread.

Velocity X area= ?
Just plug those numbers in & we'll all know exactly what the flow rate is & we won't have to guess anymore.

[CharlieK]

_ Would you mind showing us the numbers to plug in to get within, say 100,000 CFS of the flow rate so we can then know at which critical point they will be forced to open the flood gates & evacuate the town of Butte Larose.
I mean I can give you the formula. It's been quoted adnausium on this thread.

Velocity X area= ?
Just plug those numbers in & we'll all know exactly what the flow rate is & we won't have to guess anymore. _

What in the name of all that is holy are you talking about?

It's been stated MANY times here and elsewhere that when the flow exceeds 1.5 million cfs at red river landing Morganza is opened (at whatever level they deem necessary to control the flow rates).

I am making NO guesses, wild or otherwise. YOU are.

Watch that Hydrill though, don't let your annulis pressure get too high.

[jumboragncajun]

_

Kyle, what I interpet Mr./Dr./Prof Helmut's statement to be is simply that there is still a lot more water coming. I also noticed that as any professional he cautiously avoided making a prediction, estimation, or projection of anything due to the numerous unknowns while looking at the larger picture.

From your gages:
This first graph does show a local downward trend at the Red River Landing:
The second graph is THE SAME GRAPH from a larger scale view indicating the river is still way above flood stage, and local movements are still very small and quite a bit of volume needs to be discharged still. This is typical up the River. As it stands now, there is still about 100k more CFS coming into the basin than what is leaving. As long as that is the case, it will continue to rise. As the basin rises, the differential head becomes smaller and the discharge into the basin reduces.......threfore, the possibility still exists that a gate may need to be opened.

[Bandwagon King]

_ What in the name of all that is holy are you talking about?

It's been stated MANY times here and elsewhere that when the flow exceeds 1.5 million cfs at red river landing Morganza is opened (at whatever level they deem necessary to control the flow rates).

I am making NO guesses, wild or otherwise. YOU are.

Watch that Hydrill though, don't let your annulis pressure get too high. _

I am asking how are you, me, the corps or anybody else short of the mind of Allmighty God going to figure that number out to any degree of accuracy & explain why it was necessary to kill thousands of animals & flood out the town of Butte Larose.

It's simple. Velocity= the rate at which the river is flowing in MPH or KPH.
multiplied by the height & width of the river = ?

You can't figure it out because it is too astronomical to figure out with 100% accuracy. It is too astronomical to figure out with 95% accuracy. 90%? maybe. Until then I'll choose to believe that someone somewhere understands that the charts don't lie & aint pulling the trigger unless they are forced to.

[jumboragncajun]

_ Would you mind providing us with an example of the flow rate calculation sir?
I mean I have been accused of being pompas & arrogant pulling stuff from where the sun doesn't shine & making wild guesses that somehow keep coming to fruition.

Would you mind showing us the numbers to plug in to get within, say 100,000 CFS of the flow rate so we can then know at which critical point they will be forced to open the flood gates & evacuate the town of Butte Larose.
I mean I can give you the formula. It's been quoted adnausium on this thread.

Velocity X area= ?
Just plug those numbers in & we'll all know exactly what the flow rate is & we won't have to guess anymore. _

Q=VA does not BEGIN to cover it with open channel flow. For the sake of time, you do some research on Manning's formula that accounts for the wetted perimeter, bed slopes, etc.... Helmut previously gave an explanation of the how the velocity changes within the section and at different stages.

[jumboragncajun]

To make a prediction about specific levels in a storage basin without knowing the volume in, the volume out, the volume of the basin, or the tailwater conditions is nothing more than a guess. That plain and simple.

It would be like me watching a Cajuns football practice for the first time ever, and based on that information proclaiming that the Saints would win the superbowl.
And as luck would have it, the saints win the superbowl, and I proclaim myself as the "Best football prognasticator in the history of the universe".....(which I know you Kyle would take offense to because I stole that QUOTE from him).

The TW is the brakes, more or less, on how fast it can leave. (controlling the elevation) If you guess at that, you are guessing at hydraulics. PERIOD. If you NEGLECT it, you have no business making an projection. It would be one thing if you made your prediction for shiggles. But you demeaned anyone else that had a different opinion than you because you had a hard scientific number, in your opinion.