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* NASA has some great satellite photos of the recent flooding along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Click here for the high resolution versions. This is the Cairo area on April 29th of last year, to give you an idea of “normal” conditions…
* Here is the same region on April 29th of this year, just before the Army Corps of Engineers blew that fuseplug levee on the Missouri side…
* And this is from May 4th, after the fuseplug levee was blown…
* This website will be co-sponsoring a fundraising event next month for Little Egypt towns hurt by the flood. Stay tuned for more details and lots of haranguing from me.
posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, May 18, 11 @ 9:16 am
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Pretty amazing shots.
Comment by wordslinger Wednesday, May 18, 11 @ 9:54 am
The Corp of Engineers recently said that the ‘trigger’ to open the Morganza Spillway was when the river reached a flow of 1.5 million gallons/sec. I was trying to visualize 1.5 million gallons of water and here is what I came up with. 1.5 million gallons would fill an NFL football field 27 feet deep. At 1.5 million gallons per second the water would completely fill the Sears Tower in 35 seconds.
Comment by IL_Farm_Boy Wednesday, May 18, 11 @ 10:10 am
I heard an example on the radio the other day that just one of the gates on the spillway just north of New Orleans discharged enough water to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool in a matter of seconds. Simply amazing.
Comment by Slick Willy Wednesday, May 18, 11 @ 10:46 am
Farmboy - I think you forgot to convert gallons to cubic feet.
A football field is 360′ x 160′ for total area of 57,600 sq ft. (Including the end zones)
1.5 million gallons is equal to 200,521 cubic feet of water. (7.48 gallons = 1 cf)
Therefore, 1.5 million gallons of water will cover a football field to a depth of about 3.5 feet.
Even so, to be able to fill a football field in 1 second to 3.5 feet is still amazing. The 27′ depth would take 7.7 seconds, still a little mind boggling.
Comment by Huh? Wednesday, May 18, 11 @ 12:01 pm
Putting statistics and numbers aside, thank you Rich for not forgetting the people who live and work in southern Illinois as it seems so many have.
The devastation and limited support from the state so far has left towns like Olive Branch without potable water and no official declaration as of Monday …. they are still reviewing the situation while Missouri had FEMA on the ground some time ago.
Again. Thank you.
Comment by LINK Wednesday, May 18, 11 @ 1:46 pm
@Huh - 1.5 million gallons/sec is roughly three times the flow rate of Niagara Falls. Thats a lot of natural power.
Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Wednesday, May 18, 11 @ 2:24 pm
Without diversion, predictions were that amount of water would have been worse than Katrina on New Orleans. Years ago one would have expected wholesale changes in the the path of the river once the water receded.
Comment by muon Wednesday, May 18, 11 @ 2:54 pm
What Link says about the limited support of the State is only the tip of it. Not only is the state giving limited support, they also ordered that help in the clean up be stopped. Work Crew Inmates from Tamms C.C. MSU were scheduled to help with the clean up this week in Cairo, Olive Branch, and Tamms. One Crew per day, alternating between the towns. They were ordered by the Administration not to assist in flood clean up in anyway, and not allowed to help at all until IEMA says its ok. That was Monday. Alexander County requested the assistance of the work crew thru IEMA when they were informed of this on Monday. IEMA has yet to approve it. The State is not only offering limited support, but stopped assistance that was there to help.
Comment by SO IL M Wednesday, May 18, 11 @ 7:37 pm