On Friday, for the first time since 1997, the Bonnet Carre Spillway opening became an instant attraction.

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Bonnet Carre Spillway

A large crowd from near and far wanted to be on the scene for an event that happens only once every decade or so.

The crowd was huge and stood on the levee, swarming the fence next to the spillway while lounging on the concrete. Many brought blankets, chairs and picnic supplies, and the most important accessory, cameras so they could oh and ah as the spillway bays were opened and river water gushed through.

They wanted to bring the memories back home. It was the perfect place for a lunch-break from work.

“I came to see this exciting event, to open up the spillway,” Destrehan resident Diane Leboyd said.

The event was for lifelong residents.

“I was born and raised here,” Montz citizen Colleen Landry said. “This is the eighth opening. I only missed the first because I wasn't here. I wasn't born.”

It also was for those who just moved here.

“I'm from Chicago,” Deborah Rucks said. “I live here now, but this is really something to see.”

"This, to me, is extraordinary,” former London resident Suzie Smith said. “This is my dog's back yard. This is where we come every day to walk my dogs, so we've watched this happen from the very first trickle through the locks, to this.”

For Smith, the story will be something she can tell fellow Londoners.

“They're going to be knocked out,” she said. “They're going to be absolutely knocked out with this, especially my son."

Some people flew kites, others played in the rising water, not aware that they were not the only ones in it, and for students at Norco Four-to-Six Elementary School, this was a cool field trip.

"This is a once in a lifetime chance for most people,” Assistant Principal Steven Guitterez said. “We live in a community right next to the spillway, so they experience the spillway in its dry season, and we wanted to experience the spillway in the wet part too.”

Even the state's chief executive just had to see this for himself.

“It’s my first time to actually see them pull the pins and see the cranes,” Governor Bobby Jindal said. “I was telling the Colonel it is amazing to me that this is technology that is decades old that continues to work today."

For those who have not yet had the chance to visit, the spillway is expected to be open between two and four weeks.