^
Workers erect a temporary floodwall
in Alton, Ill., in May, after breached
levees left its downtown underwaterto an increase in local populations. More
river infrastructure goes up, and new peo-
ple move in. So, in turn, more infrastruc-
ture is built. The cycle is endless—or it has
been so far.
Colin Wellenkamp, executive director
of the Mississippi River Cities and Towns
Initiative, a coalition of riverside mayors,
says he’s noted a recent change in the po-
litical tide. His organization is pushing to
reconnect the river to its natural flood-
plains, rather than build more levees, and
the past few years of flooding have driven
more mayors to support such efforts. “It’s
sinking in for everybody now,” Wellen-
kamp says. “What we’ve been doing for
the past 100 years isn’t working, so maybe
we ought to do something else.”
On a recent tour of river infrastructure,
one reporter asked Ricky Boyett, a Corps
spokesman, what they might do if the Old
River Control Structure fails (again) and
the river reroutes itself. Would they try
to re-engineer the entire Mississippi back
to its current shape? Boyett’s answer was
glib: “You know, Army Corps—we can.”
Then, laughing, he backtracked. “I al-
ways say we’ve picked the worst enemy
in the world, and that’s Mother Nature,”
he said. “Because at the end of the day,
we know that Mother Nature can do what
Mother Nature wants, and we’re just try-
ing to hold it on pause.” The MR&T Project was also not built to
contain floods, like this year’s, that stretch
into hurricane season. During Katrina,
the Mississippi jumped 12 ft. in New Or-
leans, but because the river started low,
no levees overtopped. This May, when
I raised the possibility of a storm surge
pushing the flood over the levees with the
National Hurricane Center Storm Surge
Unit, Jamie Rhome, the unit’s team leader,
said only that it was “a concern.”
In July, as Louisiana prepared for Hur-
ricane Barry, the National Weather Ser-
vice predicted the storm surge would
push the river to 20 ft.—the same height
as some of New Orleans’ levees. This was
a historic warning: no completed MR&T
Project levee has ever overtopped.
That remains true. The river ended
up stopping short of 17 ft. But the crisis
showed how few options remain if another
hurricane comes, this year or during a fu-
ture late-season flood. The Corps is not au-
thorized to open the spillways for a storm
surge, and besides, opening the Morganza
Floodway during Barry, as one Corps offi-
cial told the Times-Picayune/New Orleans
Advocate, “would actually have caused
worse effects.” That’s because Barry made
landfall in the same territory where Mor-
ganza would have sent the water.
The flood officially ended in early Au-
gust, but the water will rise again. Forced
to revisit engineering decisions made de-
cades ago, the Corps’ New Orleans office
has a study under way, examining how
the river’s dynamics around Old River
and Morganza have changed in the past
80 years. This could lead them to issue
new trigger levels. Barry also prompted
discussion of how they can better under-
stand the river’s flow—perhaps by install-
ing more gauges that measure the water’s
height—and how storms could impact it
at different points.
Building more infrastructure now
might prove unwise. “That’s going to
come with a cost,” Davis says. “Any water
you stop from coming into your home
goes into somebody else’s.” The other
choice is to find other places to put the
water. A widely admired flood- control
system in the Netherlands has a telling
name: “Room for the River.” The key
strategy of the system, which was com-
pleted under budget last year, is identi-
fying land that can be reconnected to the
Rhine to absorb its floods.
To retreat rather than build seems
against the American instinct. Histori-
cally, floods in the southern U.S. have led
43