A “stuck” weather pattern is bringing epic flooding to the Mississippi River basin, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.
“Torrential rains in Oklahoma over the past two weeks have brought the Arkansas River in western Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma to its highest water level ever recorded,” Dr. Jeff Masters reported in the Category 6 weather blog (see: “Historic Flooding on the Arkansas River in Oklahoma and Arkansas,” by Dr. Jeff Masters).
Floodwaters turned the small town of Braggs, Oklahoma, into a virtual island, The New York Times reported (see: “‘Blocked Off From Civilization’: Floodwaters Turn Oklahoma Town Into an Island,” by Manny Fernandez). “To get gas, people in Braggs write their names on their gas cans and a friend or neighbor makes a gas run by boat to the mainland,” the Times reported. “There are feed runs for people’s livestock, medicine runs, grocery runs. The power was just turned back on for many residents on Sunday night, and more than a dozen people — including children and the elderly — were evacuated by two of the Oklahoma National Guard’s Black Hawk helicopters.”
Flooding in the Mississippi River is so intense that the US Army Corps of Engineers announced plans to open the Morganza Spillway, north of New Orleans, for only the third time in history to prevent overtopping of levees and flooding downstream. The Baton Rouge Advocate had this report (see: “Morganza Spillway to be opened next week amid ‘historic and unprecedented’ flood fight,” by Lea Skene and Grace Toohey). “The lower Mississippi River typically rises and falls with the seasons, but the Corps said the current situation is not like past river floods’ because of its duration,” the paper reported. “The past nine months have been some of the wettest on record for the eastern United States — unprecedented within the past 125 years.”
President Trump approved an emergency declaration for parts of Louisiana expected to see devastating flooding when the spillway opens, the Advocate reported (see: “Trump OKs Louisiana emergency declaration ahead of Morganza Spillway opening,” by Elizabeth Crisp).