With the threat of the Mississippi River getting too high for the New Orleans area levees, crews today are practicing opening the Bonnet Carre Spillway structure.
"Right now, the seven-day forecast does have the operational trigger in," Corps of Engineers spokesman Matt Roe told WWL's Tommy Tucker.
That means that if rainfall expectations upriver hold, they will move forward with letting the Mississippi River empty through the spillway and into Lake Pontchartrain.
"Water is seeping through the structure (now), as it is designed to do."
Roe explained that it has been three years since they could even practice opening the structure, because the water was too low.
"We need water actually flowing through," he says.
He says not only do they have those conditions now, but the outlook shows they should be ready to do it for real.
"Forecasts have been right around the trigger point or just beyond it, so we are just taking today as an opportunity to get out and exercise."
The last time the spillway was open was in 2020.
It is opened an average of about once every seven years to prevent greater New Orleans from flooding.
Officials are waiting to see actual rainfall amounts upriver before making the final call on whether they have to open the spillway in the coming days.
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