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PRESEASON: SAINTS AT CHARGERS • 3:05 P.M. • FOX 1C
N O L A.C O M
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S u n d ay, au g u S t 10, 2025
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Jail locks failed for months before escape
THE RIVER’S RECKONING
Orleans Parish detainees jammed doors with Scrabble tiles, debris
BY JOSEPH CRANNEY | Staff writer
STAFF PHOTOS By DAVID GRUNFELD
The Old River Control Structures near Lettsworth keep the Mississippi River from changing course to the Atchafalaya River.
HOLDING BACK
THE RIVER
By the time 10 detainees escaped the Orleans Parish jail in May, the doors and locks on holding cells across the facility were failing so frequently that maintenance workers were scrambling to fix them at a rate of around twice a day, according to records. “NONE OF THE DOOR(s) WANT TO CLOSE,” worker Stephen Carter wrote May 15 when he serviced the top level of pod 1C on the first floor, according to maintenance logs. Just one day later, the escape happened on the same floor, a tier over. Easily compromised sliding-cell doors were among the many security breaches that helped to facilitate the escape. They are used to house the jail’s general population on the first floor, even though the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office has since
ä See LOCKS, page 7A
Keeping the Mississippi from changing course is vital for Louisiana and the nation, but new challenges are emerging
ELECTION 2025 NEW ORLEANS MAyOR
Second in a series
BY MIKE SMITH | Staff writer LETTSWORTH — The giant steel doors below Russell Beauvais’ feet are holding back water that can determine the future of south Louisiana — and far beyond. On one side of the elaborate complex in this remote corner of the state lined with sugar cane fields is the Mississippi River. The other side leads to the Atchafalaya River. Allowing the two to merge — as nature would prefer — would be nothing short of epochal. “Without this, the nation and the state of Louisiana wouldn’t exist like it is today,” the 61-year-old Cajun from the nearby town of Morganza says of the Old River Control Structures, where he serves as operations manager. Of all the levees, gates and walls keeping the Mississippi River in place across the length of America’s spine, Old River Control may be the most consequential. Without it, river shipping, industry along the lower Mississippi, the region’s drinking water and communities along its banks — including New Orleans — would be forever changed. But the structure’s operations were
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Russell Beauvais, operations manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Old River Control Structures, stands on one of the structure sections. designed in another era, and a new set of pressing problems across the lower river have emerged. They range from saltwater intrusion moving upriver from the Gulf to how flood control systems along the Mississippi are operated. Changing conditions related to the riverbed and intensifying rainfall are also stoking some concern about the possibility of the structure being over-
ä For more from this series, go to nola.COM
powered one day, and whether the nation is underestimating that catastrophic risk. Those questions and more are demanding the country investigate how Old River can be adapted to deal with them. Despite the structure’s vital importance, that task is proving to be problematic, beset by competing
ä See RIVER, page 10A
3 hopefuls agree key to city’s growth is fixing basic services BY ANTHONY McAULEY | Staff writer For the past three decades, Noah Lewis has run his property and casualty firm from offices in New Orleans East. The insurance business, he said, is like a canary in the coal mine for the broader local economy: When you’re writing policies for car repair shops, beauty salons, and a host of other small enterprises, you get a street-level sense of how the numbers are stacking up, and his sense is things are on the wrong track. Over the years, Lewis has watched his
ä See CANDIDATES, page 6A
WEATHER HIGH 92 LOW 78 PAGE 8B
Business ......................1E Deaths .........................4B Nation-World................2A Classified ..................... 2F Living............................1D Opinion ........................6B Commentary ................7B Metro ...........................1B Sports ..........................1C
12TH yEAR, NO. 363