BATON ROUGE, LA – More than four decades after it was conceived, the unfinished Comite River Diversion Canal has been named Best Upcoming Flood-Control Project of 1983.
Judges praised the project for maintaining the anticipation residents felt during the Reagan administration, when Michael Jackson topped the charts and officials explained that relief was right around the corner.
“This canal represents the future of flood control,” said an official reading from a press release found beside a Betamax player. “It represented the future in 1983, it represents the future today, and at this pace it may represent the future forever.”
Now 67% complete and expected to cost $819 million, the canal narrowly defeated other 1983 finalists, including a stack of sandbags, a man with a shovel, and the proposal to stop building zero lot line subdivisions in floodplains.
Officials thanked generations of taxpayers for supporting the project and promised the award would be displayed inside the canal’s visitor center.
The award ceremony concluded with officials cutting a ribbon across the unfinished canal, then leaving it there so construction crews would have something else to work around.
