Great Mississippi Flood of 1927

This article is about Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. For the Mississippi Flood of 1993, see Great Flood of 1993.

Mississippi River Flood of 1927 showing flooded areas and relief operations

The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 was the most destructive river flood in the history of the United States.^[1]

Events

The flood began when heavy rains pounded the central basin of the Mississippi in the summer of 1926. By September, the Mississippi's tributaries in Kansas and Iowa were swollen to capacity. On Christmas Day of 1926, the Cumberland River at Nashville topped levees at 56.2 feet (17 m), a level that remains a record to this day, even exceeding the devastating 2010 floods.

Flooding overtook the levees causing the Mounds Landing to break with more than double the water volume of Niagara Falls. The Mississippi River broke out of its levee system in 145 places and flooded 27,000 square miles (70,000 km²). This water flooded an area 80 km (50 mi) wide and more than 160 km (99 mi) long. The area was inundated up to a depth of 30 feet (10 m). The flood caused over $400 million in damages and killed 246 people in seven states.

The flood affected Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee, Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. Arkansas was hardest hit, with 14% of its territory covered by floodwaters. By May 1927, the Mississippi River below Memphis, Tennessee, reached a width of 60 miles (97 km).^[2]

Arkansas River flooded Natural Steps, Arkansas in 1927

Attempts at relief

A river levee is blown up at Caernarvon in 1927

On April 15, 1927, 15 inches (380 mm) of rain fell in New Orleans in 18 hours.^[3] More than 4 feet (1.2 m) of water covered parts of the city, and influential bankers in town met about how to guarantee the safety of the city, with the scale of flooding upriver already known. A few weeks later, about 30 tons of dynamite were set off on the levee at Caernarvon, Louisiana and sent 250,000 ft³/s (7,000 m³/s) of water pouring through. This was intended to prevent New Orleans from experiencing serious damage, but flooded much of St. Bernard Parish and all of Plaquemines Parish's east bank. As it turned out, the destruction of the Caernarvon levee was unnecessary; several major levee breaks well upstream of New Orleans, including one the day after the demolitions, made it impossible for flood waters to seriously threaten the city.

Political, sociological and cultural effects

Following the Great Flood of 1927, the Army Corps of Engineers was again charged with taming the Mississippi River. Under the Flood Control Act of 1928, the world's longest system of levees was built. Floodways that diverted excessive flow from the Mississippi River were constructed.^[4]

The aftermath of the flood was one factor in the Great Migration of African-Americans to northern cities. During an era driven by racism, blacks built levees at gunpoint, starved in refugee camps and many were left to fend for themselves during the flood, while whites were rescued.^[5] Previously, the move from the rural South to the Northern cities had virtually stopped. In June 1927 the flood waters began to recede, however interracial relations continued to be strained. Hostilities had erupted between the races; a black man was shot by a white police officer when he refused to be conscripted to unload a relief boat.^[6][7] As a result of displacements lasting up to six months, tens of thousands of local African-Americans moved to the big cities of the North, particularly Chicago, many thousands more followed in the following decades.^[8]

The flood propelled Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, who was in charge of flood relief operations, into the national spotlight and set the stage for his election to the Presidency. It also helped Huey Long be elected Louisiana Governor in 1928.^{[9]:408-409, 477, 487}

The flood had the unlikely effect of contributing to both the election of Herbert Hoover as President, and his defeat four years later. He was much lauded for his masterful handling of the refugee camps, but later concerns over the treatment of blacks in those camps caused him to make promises to the African-American community which he later broke, losing the black vote in his re-election campaign.^{[9]:259-290, passim}

Several reports on the terrible situation in the refugee camps, including one by the Colored Advisory Commission by Robert Russa Moton, were kept out of the media at the request of Herbert Hoover, with the promise of further reforms for blacks after the presidential election. When he failed to keep the promise, Moton and other influential African-Americans helped to shift the allegiance of Black Americans from the Republican party to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Democrats.^[9]:415

The flood resulted in a great cultural output as well, inspiring a great deal of folklore and folk music. Charlie Patton, Bessie Smith, Barbecue Bob, and many other blues musicians wrote songs about the flood. Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie's "When the Levee Breaks" was reworked by Led Zeppelin, and became one of that group's most famous songs. William Faulkner's short story "Old Man" (in the book If I Forget Thee Jerusalem) was about a prison break from Parchman Penitentiary during the flood. Several decades after the flood, Randy Newman wrote the song "Louisiana 1927," Zachary Richard wrote the song "Big River," and Eric Bibb wrote the song "Flood Water" about it.

See also

Mississippi portal

• 2011 Mississippi River floods
• Effect of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans
• Great Flood of 1993
• Mississippi River floods
• Timeline of environmental events

References

1. ^ Man v. Nature, National Geographic, May 2001 Accessed June 14, 2008
2. ^ [1] Accessed July 11, 2009
3. ^ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/neworleans/peopleevents/p_butler.html
4. ^ "After the Flood of 1927". Houghton Mifflin. http://www.classzone.com/books/earth_science/terc/content/investigations/es1308/es1308page06.cfm. Retrieved 2010-07-15. 
5. ^ "In The Delta". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/05/08/us/AP-US-Mississippi-River-Flooding-1927.html?hp. 
6. ^ "One Man's Experience". PBS. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/flood/sfeature/sf_levee.html. Retrieved 2010-07-15. "The police were sent into the Negro section to comb from the idlers the required number of workers. Within two hours, the worst had happened: a Negro refused to come with the officer, and the officer killed him." 
7. ^ William Alexander Percy (1941, Reprint 2006). Lanterns on the Levee: Recollections of a Planter's Son. Reprint. Louisiana State University Press. pp. 257–258, 266. ISBN 978-0807100721. http://books.google.com/books?id=nz5GzXuqlmgC&printsec=frontcover&pg=PA266&lpg=PA266#v=onepage&q&f=false. 
8. ^ "Voices from the Flood". PBS. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/flood/sfeature/sf_flood.html. Retrieved 2010-07-15. "After the flood, the Delta would never be the same. With their meager crops destroyed, and feeling deeply mistrustful of white Delta landlords after their poor treatment as refugees, thousands of African Americans left the area. Many headed north to seek their fortunes in Chicago." 
9. ^ ^{a b c} Barry, John M.. Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America. ISBN 0-684-84002-2. http://books.google.com/books?id=lh0JevgRoKsC&pg=PP4&dq=Rising+Tide:+The+Great+Mississippi+Flood+of+1927+and+How+It+Changed+America#v=onepage&f=false. 

Further reading

• Payne, John Barton (1929). The Mississippi Valley Flood Disaster of 1927. Official Report of the Relief Operations. Washington, DC: American National Red Cross. OCLC 1610750. 
• Daniel, Pete (1977). Deep'n As It Come: The 1927 Mississippi River Flood. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195021223. 
• Barry, John M. (1997). Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0684840022. 
• Sevier, Richard P. (2003). Madison Parish (Images of America). Charleston, SC: Arcadia. ISBN 0738515108.  Contains over 200 pictures of the flood as it affected the Tensas Basin in eastern Louisiana. Website with selected photographs from the book.
• Eldredge, Charles C. (2007). John Steuart Curry's Hoover and the Flood: Painting Modern History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9780807830871. 

External links

• A film clip of the Mississippi River Flood of 1927 is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more] - Short silent film of the flood aftermath and relief efforts for the refugees. Produced by the US Army Signal Corps.
• Disaster Response and Appointment of a Recovery Czar: The Executive Branch's Response to the Flood of 1927 - Well referenced CRS report.
• Delta Geography Information about how the Flood of 1927 currently influences the life of people that live in the Delta
• PBS American Experience: Fatal Flood
• U.S. Army Engineers periodical "ESPRIT", March, 2002 - Lead article relying heavily on John M. Barry's book; includes some photographs.
• The Final Report of the Colored Advisory Commission Text of the report provided by "The American Experience."
• Historic video footage of 1927 Mississippi Flood and US Coast Guard rendering aid to flood victims
• Youtube video from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Vicksburg District