Photo By Ryan Labadens | Water from the Mississippi River pours into the Bonnet Carre’ Spillway in Norco,...... read more read more
Personnel from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District, performed an operational exercise of the Bonnet Carre’ Spillway in Norco, La., April 21, 2025.
Extreme weather conditions earlier in April 2025 in the Mississippi and Ohio River valleys caused water levels to rise in the Lower Mississippi River, providing USACE personnel an opportunity to test the spillway’s equipment and give crews hands-on training opening and closing one of the 350 bays on the structure. The bay was closed at the end of the exercise.
Built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1932, the Bonnet Carre’ Spillway is a flood-risk management structure designed to pass water from the Mississippi River into the Gulf of America via Lake Pontchartrain to reduce the risk of the Mississippi River compromising its levee system and causing flooding in the Lower Mississippi River Valley.
The spillway was constructed in response to the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, one of the most catastrophic floods in U.S. history. This event flooded nearly 27,000 square miles of land in the Mississippi River Valley.
The Bonnet Carré Spillway, located 28 miles above New Orleans, is a vital element of the multi-state Mississippi River and Tributaries system, which uses a variety of features to provide flood risk reduction to the alluvial Mississippi Valley from Cape Girardeau, Mo., to Head of Passes, La. Located on the east bank in St. Charles Parish, it can divert a portion of the river's floodwaters via Lake Pontchartrain into the Gulf of America, thus allowing high water to bypass New Orleans and other nearby river communities.
The Bonnet Carré structure consists of a control structure and a floodway. The control structure is a concrete weir that parallels the river for a mile and a half. It consists of 350 gated bays, each holding 20 timber "needles," for a total of 7,000 needles. When needles are removed, river water flows into the spillway and travels nearly six miles between guide levees to the lake. Two cranes, moving on tracks atop the structure, lift timbers from their vertical position in the weir and set them horizontally across the top of the structure to allow river water into the spillway.
While no recommendation has been made currently regarding operation of the Bonnet Carre’ Spillway in 2025, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is continuing to monitor National Weather Service forecasts and actual conditions on the Mississippi River so they can make informed decisions regarding this event during the 2025 high-water season.
| Date Taken: | 04.22.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 04.22.2025 17:00 |
| Story ID: | 495907 |
| Location: | NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA, US |
| Hometown: | NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA, US |
| Web Views: | 174 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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Army Corps of Engineers
