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Summary Morganza has only been opened once before, in 1973.
The government scrambled to shore up the levee system in the Deep South to prevent the mighty Mississippi River from overflowing and flooding populated areas.The Army Corps of Engineers is preparing to open the Morganza Spillway in Louisiana this weekend to prevent massive flooding in New Orleans. Morganza has only been opened once before, in 1973. But without opening the spillway, experts forecast low-lying New Orleans could be flooded with up to 25 feet of water just six years after Hurricane Katrina flooded the city. The Mississippi River flood, the result of a wet spring and huge snow melt from an unusually stormy winter, has forced the evacuation of thousands of people along the river and its tributaries, swamping river towns and expected to flood 3 million acres of farmland in Mississippi, Tennessee and Arkansas alone.
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