Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway by residents and landowners since its inception. After the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the engineering policy on the Mississippi River changed from building levees high enough to withstand the greatest recorded flood to include floodways. The Flood Control Act of 1928 authorized the United States Army Corps of Engineers to construct the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway in Missouri and the Morganza Spillway and Bonnet Carre Spillway in Louisiana. Even before its authorization, the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway was the subject of controversy. In June 1927, President Calvin Coolidge instructed the Mississippi River Commission and the Corps of Engineers to
Morganza Spillway was expected in the Atchafalaya Basin regardless of the choice made regarding the Morganza Spillway, the Corps decided to start the 2011 diversion by opening the spillway a bit less than described in scenario 1a (21%, not 25%) The Governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, had meanwhile sent a letter on May 4, 2011, to Robert Gates, the United States Secretary of Defense, requesting that the National Guard be deployed under Title 32 of the United States Code status to respond to record water levels in Louisiana, where there was "a significant probability that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers [would]