Dirk Powell is from Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, and has family roots in the mountains of Kentucky.

ARMY engineers opened a key spillway along the bulging Mississippi River yesterday, deluging thousands of homes and farms in Louisiana’s Cajun country in order to avert a potentially bigger disaster in Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

Army engineers will open a key spillway along the bulging Mississippi River as early as today, deluging thousands of homes and farms in Louisiana’s Cajun country in order to avert a potentially bigger disaster in Baton Rouge and New Orleans.