Mile 314.6 - RBD Main Intake -- Old River Control Structure

314.6 RBD Main Intake -- Old River Control Structure

This is the original gate built in 1963 to “keep the Mississippi in its place,” and was almost washed away a decade later, in 1973, by floods that scoured120 foot deep holes around its monumental concrete & steel footings. The auxiliary channel was built following this shake-up to help distribute the water more evenly during future floods, an addition that seemed to work well during the 2011 flood.

Layne Logue added this unique perspective on the 1973 near-disaster, with stories from his father:

“In 1973 my dad, Louis H. Logue, worked for the Vicksburg Corps of Engineers and visited the damaged Control Structure as it neared catastrophic failure. The east side of the Control Structure was scouring underneath. The wing walls had collapsed. The only solution available was to drop huge rock boulders (3-4 ft diameter) into the scour area. They attached steel cables to a single barge and reeled it out like a fisherman letting his bait drift into the honey hole. A rubber-tire front end loader on the barge would push the boulders off and into the holes. The operator would sometimes back up right to the edge of the barge as he maneuvered around causing my Dad’s heart to stop. This operator had nerves of steel. He’s driving around this barge, pushing rock off the edge and the barge is held only by steel cables AND the barge is being pushed by high flood turbulent waters into a control structure that is failing. I don’t know what he got paid… but it wasn’t enough! About 20-30 barges of rock were pushed off at that structure. My Dad said, “You could hear the giant boulders bounce around like a pinball in a pinball machine as they went through the control structure and out the back where the energy dissipaters stand”. After the flood had dropped, the Corps built cofferdams to dewater the area, repair and beef-up the structure. There wasn’t even a single boulder to be seen. They had all disappeared.”