Highwater
2005
 |
| Captain
John Henderson, USACE, Greenwood Area Office and John
Stringer Tensas Basin Levee Board listen as Peter Nimrod
Chief Engineer, MississippiLevee Board responds to questions
during Phase I Flood Fight Organizational meeting. |
The Mississippi River crested
at 50.8' on January 25, 2005 at the Greenville Gage. This
is the all-time recorded high for January. This is following
the second highest recorded December of 45.0' only to 1982's
45.4'. According to the Corps of Engineers, we are approximately
3' below the January, 1927 stages, but we are 8' above January,
1973 stages. The Mississippi Levee Board hosted a Phase I
Organizational Meeting on January 14 in preparation of the
forecast for above 49' at the Greenville Gage.
CHART: JANUARY, 2005 CREST DATA
Arkansas City 39.4 January 25
Greenville 50.8 January 25
Vicksburg 44.4 January 28
Phase I daily patrols started January 20 and ended January
27 when the River crested. Inspectors included Corps of Engineers
employees and Yazoo-Mississippi Delta Joint Water Management
District employees. “The Corps of Engineers and the
YMD Joint Water Management District loans employees to the
Levee Board to use as inspectors during a highwater event,
said Chief Engineer Peter Nimrod. “This is a great help
to us in allowing us to do our job at the critical areas of
concern, while we have informed and educated inspectors watch
the entire length of our levee system,” continued Nimrod.
Daily patrols of the 212 miles of levee were divided into
four sectors - Rosedale, Greenville, Mayersville and Yazoo
Backwater. Inspectors looked for wave wash and levee slides
on the riverside of the levee and they looked for seepwater
and sand boils on the landside of the levee. Daily sector
reports were submitted to the Corps Coordinator who then compiled
a daily Situation Report (SITREP). The SITREP was disseminated
daily to the Corps of Engineers, Mississippi Levee Board,
and the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta Levee Board.
The Yazoo Backwater area was flooded with water because the
Steele Bayou structure had to be closed January 13. The riverside
of the Steele Bayou structure crested at 92.8' on Jan. 29,
2005. With normal rainfall, it is expected to crest at 92'
landside. It is expected to open February 6-12. At stage 92',
a total of 337,000 acres are flooded of which 164,000 are
developed. If the Yazoo Backwater Pumps were in place, we
would have only gotten to 88.5' which would have flooded 241,000
total acres of which 107,000 are developed.
Mississippi Levee Board crews were dispatched to the Brunswick
Circle Levee near Eagle Lake to close off the ditch and a
culvert draining the protected area and preventing backwater
from flooding the area when stages reach 91' at the Steele
Bayou Drainage structure landside gage.
Approximately 20 sandboils were discovered in Black Bayou
just north of Greenville. Mississippi Levee Board crews constructed
a sandbag weir in Black Bayou. The weir put 1.5' of head upstream
of the weir to inhibit sandboils in Black Bayou from flowing.
Even though the Mississippi River has crested in January,
the Mississippi Levee Board anticipates the possibility of
much more flooding in the next several months.
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