less than 50%; more at link:

Pointe Coupee farmers move livestock, clear fields as they brace for spillway opening impact
[link to www.theadvocate.com (secure)]

Teaspoons clamor against ceramic coffee mugs, loose gravel crunches under the weight of slowing truck tires, and there’s an unspoken but shared anticipation when they shake hands and ask the question: "How’s that spillway going to get you?”

The farmers of Pointe Coupee Parish have long gathered around the coffee pot at the local co-op on La. 1 each morning, surrounded by the sugarcane fields and train tracks that leave little to the imagination as far as what drives industry in the area.

But Friday, as news of the nearby Morganza Spillway’s likely opening stirred through the rest of the state, it thrust Pointe Coupee into action.

Tens of thousands of acres of crawfish ponds, cotton, rice, soybeans, corn, cattle grazing, and sugar cane lie in the area that will likely soon take on feet of water to relieve pressure on Mississippi River levees south of here.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers won’t make an official decision about opening the spillway until Tuesday, but waiting isn’t a luxury.

“We don’t have that kind of time,” Kenny Self said Friday. “There’s just too much to do to wait. You have to go through the motions just in case.”

Self has nine apps on his smartphone – an entire screen’s worth – dedicated to what's happening along the Mississippi. There are gauges for Memphis, Arkansas City, Red River Landing and Baton Rouge. He has forecasts as close as five days and as far out as 25. He watches the flow rate in Baton Rouge.

He, like many of his neighbors, checks each daily. Since Thursday, he's been working with crew to remove close to 9,000 crawfish traps from ponds, to affix floats to his hunting camp and to move expensive and heavy equipment before the water flows in.

Self’s is the physically closest farm on the "afterbay" side of the spillway, so will be the first hit when the floodgates open. Locals refer to the spillway’s land mass as "forebay" and "afterbay" to describe the acreage leading up to the gates and directly beyond them.