Morganza Spillway to add height to the permanent levee by building a supplemental sandbag levee on top of it. However, additional rainfall raised the flood crest higher than even the supplemental sandbags, sending floodwaters over these levees into of cropland located within the floodway. The 2011 Mississippi River floods began to become serious in April. In response, the Corps first analyzed the flooding, and then opened the spillway in a controlled manner. The Corps studied four flooding scenarios, all of which assumed the Bonnet Carré Spillway would be concurrently operating at full capacity (100%). Following this analysis, which showed that extensive flooding
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