The sun sets in January 2016 over the Bonnet Carre Spillway, a day before Maj. Gen. Michael Wehr, head of the Mississippi River Division of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, led its opening to ensure the rising Mississippi River doesn’t overwhelm the levees in and around the River Parishes and New Orleans.
A crowd of people gathered Sunday morning, some taking pictures of the Spillway’s earliest opening since it was completed in 1931.