Every year, the Mississippi River moves a little closer to abandoning Baton Rouge and New Orleans — and a single set of gates in Louisiana is all that stops it.

This is the Old River Control Structure: the place where the Corps of Engineers froze a river in place, and the 1973 flood that almost proved it couldn't be done.

The river has changed course roughly every thousand years for the last 7,000. The film follows why it wants to leave, what was built to stop it, and what happens at the mouth of the Atchafalaya — where the Mississippi's next delta is already forming.

⏱️ Chapters
00:00 A row of steel gates
00:56 What the river carries
03:02 The Shortcut
05:01 "A critical stage between 1965 and 1975"
06:57 Spring, 1973
08:50 The Machine
11:39 The Next Delta
13:30 Where the standoff ends

📚 Sources
Sources are listed in the pinned comment. Two factual nuances from the research: the share of flow diverted to the Atchafalaya is reported on different bases by different agencies (annual total vs. latitude flow), and the 70/30 split is an annual target measured at Red River Landing, not a fixed daily gate setting.

🎙️ Narrated with a synthetic voice.

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