2011 Mississippi River floods feet per second just upstream from the Old River Control Structure. The US Army Corps of Engineers refers to this design goal as Project Flood. the expected flow will be on the high side, but still within that maximum capacity, assuming everything works as expected. On May 14, a single floodgate of the Morganza Spillway was opened in order to divert of water from the Mississippi River to the Atchafalaya Basin. This diversion was deemed necessary to protect levees and prevent major flooding in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, with the tradeoff of exacerbating flooding in the Atchafalaya Basin, and
2011 Mississippi River floods U.S. President Barack Obama declared the western counties of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi federal disaster areas. For the first time in 37 years, the Morganza Spillway was opened on May 14, deliberately flooding of rural Louisiana to save most of Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Fourteen people were killed in Arkansas, with 392 killed across seven states in the preceding storms. Thousands of homes were ordered evacuated, including over 1,300 in Memphis, and more than 24,500 in Louisiana and Mississippi, though some people disregarded mandatory evacuation orders. The flood crested in Memphis on May 10 and artificially crested in southern