Water Resources: Hydraulics and Hydrology
fighting. I don't think there were any dams except Fort Peck completed on the Upper
Missouri River.
Q:
You're correct because Gavins Point and Randall wouldn't have been finished then.
Yes, Randall was the next dam to be finished and, I think, Randall was completed in `53.
A:
Gavins Point was closed while we worked in Omaha, probably in 1955, and the other dams
followed. So in 1952, Omaha District had known releases from Fort Peck Dam, which they
routed downstream to Gavins Point. The upper limit of the Missouri River in the MBM was
at Gavins Point, because Gavins Point Dam was planned to be the most downstream point
of control. Omaha District estimated what the flood hydrograph would be at Gavins Point,
and we would put it in the MBM and route the flood downstream taking water surface
elevations to see what could be expected especially in the Omaha-Council Bluffs area. This
assisted the Omaha District in concentrating their flood fighting measures in critical areas.
As a precaution, low-lying areas of Council Bluffs were evacuated at the height of the flood.
However? flood-fighting efforts were successful, and there were no failures of flood walls
or levees in the Omaha-Council Bluffs reach.
If you want to talk in detail about the Mississippi Model, you should talk to James Foster in
Jackson. James finished college in about `48 or `49, and he worked for Irene at the time we
were in Jackson. He took over the Missouri River section in 1952 when we left and
following McGee's death in the ' 6 0 s , was in charge of the whole operation at Jackson for
the last few years the MBM was active. He worked then on similar models at WES in
Vicksburg until he retired, probably in the middle '80's.
Okay. You found you didn't like this kind of work?
A:
No, I liked.
I mean the model work.
A:
No, this is what happened in `52 when we decided to go back to school. You may already
know this--many people in the Corps in Vicksburg and at Jackson belonged to an engineer
Reserve group.
Q ..
There was a big Army Reserve engineer command down there.
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