During the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 a levee was blown up with dynamite to prevent the flooding of New Orleans. Again during record-breaking flooding in 2011, the US Army Corps of Engineers blew up a section of a Mississippi River levee with dynamite to open the New Madrid Floodway. The floodway was used for farming and had about 200 residents at the time. The levee at Bird's Point was designed to be removed if necessary so that Mississippi water levels would be lowered, taking pressure off levees for miles upstream in more populated areas such as Cairo, Illinois, and New Madrid, Missouri.