@vernalc2449

1 year ago

Living in a city located on the Atchafalaya River, I find this video very informative. For decades we have known that the Mississippi River would naturally search for the path of least resistance on its journey to the Gulf of Mexico. That would be the Atchafalaya. This would wreck Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and the dozens of communities further downstream, not to mention completely re-defining Louisiana. If I remember correctly, at one time the Atchafalaya was one of, if not the deepest river in North America with a very fast current. The spillways and controls to prevent the Mississippi River from diverting its course have been Herculean and done for some very good human reasons. They have also slowed the Atchafalaya down enough to allow rapid sediment build up to the point that you could ALMOST walk across it where I live with sandbars regularly popping up and it must be dredged regularly. Sandbars are pretty regular further downstream and demonstrate the growing delta forming at Atchafalaya Bay. To paraphrase Jeff Goldbloom in the Jurassic Park movies, "Nature always finds a way." When those structures that are keeping the Mississippi River flowing in the direction where it is now flowing=towards Baton Rouge and New Orleans-eventually give out---and one day they will--you have to applaud man's ability to TEMPORARILY keep Mother Nature from doing what she wants to do.

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