The
Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 was the most destructive river flood in the history of the
United States, with 27,
000 square miles inundated up to a depth of 30 feet. To prevent future floods, the government built the world's longest system of levees and floodways. Many Afro-Americans displaced from their homes along the
Lower Mississippi River started a large migration
North to the industrial cities.
The flood began with extremely heavy rains in 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,[3] the
Cumberland River at
Nashville exceeded 56.2 feet (17 m), a level that remains a record to this day, higher than the devastating
2010 floods.
Flooding overtopped the levees, causing 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).
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.[9]
The aftermath of the flood was one factor in accelerating the
Great Migration of African-Americans to northern cities. The flood waters began to recede in June 1927, but 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.[
8][10] 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.[11]
The flood further enhanced the reputation of
Herbert Hoover, who was in charge of flood relief operations as
Secretary of Commerce under
President Calvin Coolidge.
Hoover would later easily win the
Republican nomination for
President, and the general election, in 1928. In upstate Louisiana anger directed at the
New Orleans elite aided
Huey Long's election to the governorship in 1928.[12]:408–
409, 477, 487 Hoover 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 reelection campaign in 1932.[12]:259–290 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 Hoover's request, with the pledge of further reforms for blacks after the presidential election. When he failed to deliver, Moton and other influential African-Americans helped to shift the allegiance of black
Americans from the
Republican party to the
Democrats.
Archival footage from the flood was used in 2014 to make a feature length documentary,
The Great Flood.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Mississippi_Flood_of_1927
- published: 09 Jan 2015
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