The Rising Tide Redux

one of the history books in my library is Rising Tide, about the Mississippi flood of 1927.

PBS had a special on it. but most of the story is about the Percy family and Greenville. (this is the grandfather and uncle of Walker Percy).

But in 1927 they blew up the levees and flooded rural Louisiana to save New Orleans.

now they are again opening levees and flooding rural Louisiana to save New Orleans and Baton Rouge. BBC Story

Wikipedia summary is usually up to date, and has some worrisome points about the floods:

For the first time in 37 years, the Morganza Spillway has been opened, deliberately flooding 3,000 square miles of rural Louisiana to save most of Baton Rouge and New Orleans[4] but placing ten oil refineries, three nuclear power plants, two pipelines, barge and ship traffic, and petroleum production of 218,000 to 2.4 million barrels per day at risk.[5]

more HERE.