In early January 2016, communities along the southern reaches of the Mississippi River faced severe flooding from rains that fell weeks earlier and well to the north. Heavy December rains drenched parts of Missouri and Illinois, and the pulse of fresh water has finally reached Louisiana and Mississippi. On January 11, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers opened the Bonnet Carré Spillway near New Orleans in preparation for the southward-moving pulse of flood water.