Sketches

Comparison of wind's effect on tarp and tree branch.








View of spud barges

The Control of Nature
St. Bernard parish


"Slaves with wheelbarrows started the levees. Immigrants with wheelbarrows replaced the slaves. Mule-drawn scrapers replaced the wheelbarrows."

Eads plan for the Mississippi: "parallel jetties in the river's mouth. They pinched the currents. The accelerated water dug out and maintained a navigable channel."



Nomadic vs. permanent- "pre-Aswan Nile... lived on high ground, farmed low ground, and permitted floods to come and go according to the rhythms of nature" vs. "you can't move Vicksburg"

"In southern Louisiana, the bed of the Mississippi River is so far below sea level that a flow of at least a hundred and twenty thousand cubic feet per second is needed to hold back salt water and keep it below New Orleans, which drinks the river."


Water on Mississippi River side of the Old river dam= 18 feet, and Atchafalya side=5 feet

Old River Control

Plan, section, cross section of levee system of Mississippi river.

The river always chooses the shortest/easiest route (steepest gradient) or the path of least resistance.

• East (Teche)
• Lafourche
• Plaquemines
• Atchafalya (before this could happen, the army corps got involved)

Louisiana= sand and silt from previous river flows (about 200 miles wide)

Rising Tide

"They took a certain pride in its awfulness, in the greatness of the river. Confronting it made them larger." (pg. 17)