Mile 814.0 - Nebraska Landing

LBD 814 Nebraska Landing

During the 2011 flood the waters surging around Wrights Point tried to bust a new channel open for the Mississippi River behind the club-shaped Nebraska Point which would have turned this area into a large island. Fortunately for the small community and country church at Nebraska Point the waters receded before much damage was done. But two enormous blue holes were left behind. Blue holes are carved into the mud or sand during high water when the river cascades over some obstruction, in this case the river bank itself. After being lifted turbulently over the obstruction, the waters cascade down the other side in powerful propulsive forces that gnaw away at the earth until it yields and a cavity is formed. When the high waters recede a deep lake is left behind, some of which remain for decades on end. The two giant blue holes at Mounds Crevasse, Mississippi, for instance, are still a mile long and 100 feet deep. They were created during the Great Flood of 1927.

The US Army Corps has since stabilized the break at Nebraska Landing with a large scale rip-rap plateau artfully placed into the trees with such care that you have to look close before you realize this is man placed rock, and not sand or gravel washed into a forest. At the same time the USACE engineers memorialized the giant blue holes by surrounding them also with rip-rap, inadvertently creating swim holes for paddlers on a hot summer day!