The Atchafalaya River, the fifth largest river in North America by discharge, receives water from both the Mississippi and Red rivers and is the most direct route to the Gulf of Mexico. To keep the Mississippi in its current channel, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers limits the Atchafalaya to 30 percent of the Mississippi’s flow, about 440,000 cubic feet per second, regulated at the Old River Control Structure near Simmesport. As snowmelt and heavy rain increase water volume and bring the rivers to flood stage, Morgan City faces special danger as the final city before the Atchafalaya Basin and River reach the Gulf. After the Mississippi River Flood of 1927 and the Flood Control Act of 1928, levees were built along these rivers to reduce flooding in populated areas. The first Atchafalaya River levee or wall, built in 1946, stood 13 feet tall on both sides of the river, and later floods led to its redesign and expansion into the current 21-foot wall built after the 1973 flood. Morgan City also has a levee ring that surrounds the city, protecting it from back flow during high water and storm surges from hurricanes and making it accessible only by bridges during floods. In 1942, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers created the Wax Lake Outlet, an artificial channel off the Atchafalaya that diverts water to the Gulf, and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway provides another connection between the Mississippi River and Morgan City for large commercial vessels moving goods inland along the coast. Because of its central location on the Atchafalaya and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, Morgan City became an important industrial and commercial hub for shipping, oil and gas, stevedore businesses, and commercial fishing fleets. If the Mississippi were ever to change course again as it did before human intervention, it would likely follow its natural inclination and essentially become the Atchafalaya River, passing directly through this area.
