Mile 952.0 - RBD New Madrid Floodway Inflow Crevasse

John Ruskey

20 Apr 2026 � 1 min read

952 RBD New Madrid Floodway Inflow Crevasse

This is the “Blow Out Stretch” where the levee was blasted sky high to provide relief to the people of Cairo Illinois in the Great Flood of 2011. It worked, the water dropped 2.7 feet off the Cairo levee, and probably saved the city from disaster.

The floodway is designed to divert 550,000 cu ft/s from the Mississippi River during the major floods. At this flow the level of the Mississippi River will drop 7 feet at Cairo. Unlike the Morganza and Bonnet Carre Spillways in Louisiana, the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway does not have floodgates. The floodway is operated by a controlled destruction of the levee, either with explosives or by overtopping. The frontline levee has an 11 miles fuseplug section of the upper levee and a 5 miles section at the lower levee that are lower than adjacent sections. The operation of the floodway is directed by the president of the Mississippi River Commission after consultation with the Chief of Engineers. There is a controversial 2015 USACE proposal to permanently close off The New Madrid Floodway, which would result in the certain destruction of Cairo Illinois in the next flood. (Adopted from Wikipedia).

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