May 30, 2011

The upper Missouri River basin is seeing water like never before.  Many resevoirs will be releasing water at nearly twice the amount as ever recorded (in the history of the Dams!)  The resevoirs do not have the storage capacity, so the gates are opening, sending as much as 150,000 cfs down the river. Bismarck North Dakota, Pierre South Dakota, Sioux City, Omaha, and every other city along the river will experience major flooding.  And worse yet, its not going away anytime soon.  The dams may have to continue to release at this rate until late in the summer, or perhaps continue in the fall.  Thousands of people will be affected by this, and many farmers will lose out on crop yields.  
This will also affect the summer events lined up, including the MR340, perhaps even the barge clean-up in the fall.  Bottom line, you can not go out on a flooded river.  Below are a few links you can follow along as the water moves downstream.  More will be posted about this as time advances and we learn more about the exact conditions.  The mighty MO is wild, and this year she is rolling downstream, and nothing is going to stop her.  

  http://www.bismarcktribune.com/news/flood2011/
  http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/search/topic/?k=%22missouri%20river%22&d1=&d2=&s=start_time&sd=desc&l=50&f=html&sForm=false&sHeading=Missouri%20River

 http://www.facebook.com/OmahaUSACE
  http://www.nwo.usace.army.mil/html/op-e/flood2011/citizenresources.html