spillway to protect new orleans and baton rouge, knut but it wi moon disastrous flooding for others. any moment now, the expectation is that spillway is being opened. ed? >> reporter: about a minute ago, we're going to zoom in, yeah, exactly, about a minute ago, the water started gushing out of the one gate that was opened up. we're going to zoom in there so you can get a good look at it. for now, about one gate will be opened. it takes about 15 minutes to fully open, but you can see how much water is starting to pour out of that one gate. to put everything in perspective. this flood structure is almost 5,000 fealt long. there's 125 of those gates. not all will be needed in the coming days relieve the pressure off the mississippi river, but you can see the force and pressure already coming through just that one gate. and this number we have been talking a lot about is 1.5