High river levels submerge Gretna's new amphitheater

Unusually high Mississippi River levels for this time of year have left Gretna's new amphitheater stage surrounded by water.

When the amphitheater idea was hatched several years ago, it was expected that the venue would spend part of the year submerged; it was built in the batture, the unprotected area between the river and the levee. However, this high water comes when the river usually is expected to be low.

Relentless rains over Arkansas -- and its rivers that feed into the Mississippi -- have raised the river to near record levels for this time of year, said David Ramirez, senior hydrologist at the National Weather Service's Lower Mississippi River Forecast Center.

The river was at 11.1 feet at the Carrollton gauge Wednesday, and is expected to crest at 11.9 feet in two days, Ramirez said. That's several feet higher than expected for this time of year, he said.

Ramirez called the high river levels "very unusual." The high-water period on the Mississippi -- the result of rainfall and melting snow in the upper river basin -- usually starts in mid-February.

The Carrollton gauge reading is nowhere close to the 17-foot flood stage, and Ramirez doesn't expect any problems from the current water levels.

"The river's pretty predictable down here," he said.

Gretna built the amphitheater for about $920,000 and opened it just before this month's Gretna Heritage Festival. Used for the recent three-day festival, it consists of the stage in the batture and concrete seats built up the river side of the levee.

Since the river could reasonably be expected to be low this time of year, the city scheduled a Friday evening fall concert series for the amphitheater, beginning last month and continuing through Nov. 13. A similar concert series, using a temporary stage, was held in the fall of 2008....