Spillway Protecting New Orleans Opened

In an attempt to relieve pressure on the levee system protecting New Orleans, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers opened the Bonnet Carre Spillway. The opening of the floodgates at Bonnet Carre will send water down a six-mile channel into Lake Pontchartrain and from there into the Gulf of Mexico. Bonnet Carre was last opened in 2008, but the Army Corps says that it will likely have to open another floodway, the Morganza, that hasn’t been used since 1973 and would require the evacuation of a dozen towns. Meanwhile, upstream in Memphis, residents waited for the river to crest Tuesday morning at its highest level since 1937.