[During the May 2011 operation of the Morganza Spillway, the Army Corps of Engineers closed one channel within the southern Atchafalaya Basin, Bayou Chene, by dredging the edges of a narrow strait in the Bayou, lining it with rip-rap and sinking a 20,000-ton, 500-foot long barge in the resulting chokepoint.  By stemming the flow down that channel, the Corps was able to slow the rise of water in Lake Palourde, protecting the more vulnerable eastern side of Morgan City.

Images from Team New Orleans’ Morgan City Flood Fight Tour. (Bayou Chene is also the name of a town, on that Bayou, which, like similar towns within the Atchafalaya Basin, was abandoned when the Morganza Spillway was constructed.)]