The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927

992 Words2 Pages

The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 was one of the most destructive in the history of the United States, proving that the levee only policy was a failure and the limits of human control over the river. The beginning of the flood, from the initial crevasse, poured out “468,000 second-feet onto the Delta that triple the volume of a flooding Colorado, more than double a flooding Niagara Falls and the entire upper Mississippi ever carried” (pg 203). The flood of 1927 “shifted perceptions of the role and responsibility of the federal government… shattered the myth of a quasi-feudal bond between Delta blacks and the southern aristocracy...accelerated the great migration of blacks north. And it altered both southern and national politics....” (pg 422). America is a product of the flood of 1927 in shaping the political, social, and economic structure. With each reoccurring disaster, America, in that region, continues to face the same issues regarding social conditions and poor working conditions that failed to be addressed.

The fallout of the 1927 flood demonstrates the one of many continuing struggle in dominating the Mississippi River despite understanding the true nature of the river. For example, “The average gauge readings through the last three months of 1926… of the three largest rivers… was the highest ever known… no one at the Weather Bureau or the Mississippi River Commission correlated or even compiled this information” (pg 175). The failure in understand the nature of the river prelude to more elaborate control schemes by expanding the federal government’s responsibility in seizing full control of the Mississippi River from states jurisdiction. The U.S Army Corps of Engineers is fully responsible in constructing va...

... middle of paper ...

...The flood of 1927 granted limited compensation for the sacrificed residents with strict claims procedures. There were “no banks, business, or government agency ever made a voluntary payment to the victims to fulfill the self-proclaimed moral obligation…” (pg 360). The issues of social conditions and poor working conditions continue to resurface because the line between federal government’s roles to its citizens remains indirect with lack of socialist reform and maintain the ideals of individual altruism. The federal government maintains the stance that the free market and private enterprise will bring about recovery. The problem is that the free market and private enterprise base the loans to businesses and individuals on income or some sort of collateral for credit access. The already poor have not collateral and will continue to remain poor in this system.

Show More
Related

  • Donald Worster's Levees Analysis

    630 Words  | 2 Pages

    Yet, these forces did not act in isolation but rather vitally interacted with one another to make New Orleans particularly helpless to Hurricane Katrina. Culture, society, and nature all interacted in the formation of policy: an obstinate ideology of human control over nature, plus a lack of concern for wetland preservation, fueled the federal decision on a ‘levees only’ approach to water resource management. Even after the great flood of 1927, the Army Corp of Engineers ignored proposals to utilize wetlands for flood control. Instead, they continued to build towering levees, which caused water levels to rise in the Mississippi (Kelman). The illusion of human control over the Mississippi River signifies an instrumental interaction between culture and nature (Spreyer 5).

    Read More

  • Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed America, by John M. Barry

    815 Words  | 2 Pages

    In a passage from his book, Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, author John M. Barry makes an attempt use different rhetorical techniques to transmit his purpose. While to most, the Mississippi River is only some brown water in the middle of the state of Mississippi, to author John M. Barry, the lower Mississippi is an extremely complex and turbulent river. John M. Barry builds his ethos, uses elevated diction, several forms of figurative language, and different styles of syntax and sentence structure to communicate his fascination with the Mississippi River to a possible audience of students, teachers, and scientists.

    Read More

  • Robert J. Kaczorowski's To Begin The Nation Anew: Book Analysis

    717 Words  | 2 Pages

    Most Americans are aware of the effects of the Civil War, particularly on the abolition of slavery. But there is a great deal of ignorance on how the War and aftermath of enacting black civil rights shaped our modern government. In his article “To Begin the Nation Anew: Congress, Citizenship, and Civil Rights after the Civil War”, Robert J. Kaczorowski outlines the power struggle that occurred between local and federal government when it came to granting citizen’s rights. Though the battle wasn’t bloody, the war of government had nearly as profound effects as a physical war.

    Read More

  • Upper South Vs Lower South Essay

    1854 Words  | 4 Pages

    “The contrast in the relative prominence of slavery between the Upper South and the Lower South reflects the adverse health conditions and arduous labor requirements of lowland rice cultivation, whereas tobacco farming continued to be attractive to free family farmers as well as to slave owners”(Engerman, Sutch, & Wright, 2004). The lower South depended on their slaves more than the Upper because they were in the process of cropping tobacco. The Upper South had to keep up with the lower south, because they had to focus on their slave trade that would build and expand their plantations. During this era, the diverse between these two regions were more concerned with the values of slaves. The values of slave price can increase because of high demands between the upper and the lower South. As the upper South was coming up short, the slave profession took off. The slave profession helped the Upper South, yet there were numerous deformities. The slave percentage was at the end of its usefulness of significance “in the Upper South” significance it had a weaker understanding of community reliability than in the cotton areas. This made the upper south separate on what the future may hold. It was not clear on whether if the future was based on the Deep South’s financial growth between the North and the

    Read More

  • When The Levees Broke Essay

    461 Words  | 1 Pages

    The film “When the Levees Broke” of spike lee is a four part series covering the events that took place before and after the devastation of Katrina on New Orleans and its residents. In August 2005, New Orleans was struck by Hurricane Katrina. People were unprepared for the disaster. As the city was flooding, levees safeguard failed the city, which caused the city to go underwater. In the film, part 1 shows hurricane Katrina and it’s impact. The flooding, rescue efforts and people trying to survive the disaster. Part 2 shows the aftermath with people that were evacuated waiting for help to come to the city. It was a very slow response to help and everyone was just waiting. Part 3 shows how people started to recover. Many hoped to return to their

    Read More

  • Durkheimian Theories Applied to Buffalo Creek

    1934 Words  | 4 Pages

    In conclusion, the flood at Buffalo Creek destroyed the inhabitant’s very social fabric. This in itself is not unique, but what was unique about Buffalo Creek is that there was no post disaster euphoria, where people who have survived the disaster are uplifted by the fact that the community is still present and viable. That was not the case in Buffalo Creek, mostly in part due to HUD’s internal policies but also due to the very devastation caused by the flood. The other thing that was unique about Buffalo Creek was that ninety-three percent of the survivors had diagnosable emotional disorders eighteen months after the disaster. Usually survivors of disasters are able to get over it and move on, but the survivors of the Buffalo Creek disaster were not able to do this because of their total loss of “Gemeinschaft� or sense of community.

    Read More

  • History Of El Paso, Texas And Ciudad Juarez Flooding

    1326 Words  | 3 Pages

    El Paso has seen its fair share of heat, drought, storms and floods. The complication the binational region has to concentrate on will be management after flash flooding. In order to accomplish an earlier warning time frame the meteorologist need to get ahead of the “Climate Whiplash”. Geologist have already figured out why the ground cannot naturally absorb the stormwater leaving it to the city to find a way to divert or control the runoff. There are many ways to have the water led away from the city. This paper will bring to light past and some current systems in place.

    Read More

  • The Bias and Suffering after Hurricane Katrina: Trouble The Water, and Zeitoun

    1460 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the late summer of 2005, a terrible tragedy occurred that changed the lives of many in the south-east region of the United States. A Category 3, named storm, named Hurricane Katrina, hit the Gulf Coast on the 29th of August and led to the death of 1,836 and millions of dollars’ worth of damage (Waple 2005). The majority of the damage occurred in New Orleans, Louisiana. Waple writes in her article that winds “gusted over 100 mph in New Orleans, just west of the eye” (Waple 2005). Not only was the majority of the damage due to the direct catastrophes of the storm but also city’s levees could no longer hold thus breaking and releasing great masses of water. Approximately, 80% of the city was submerged at sea level. Despite the vast amount of damage and danger all throughout the city, officials claimed that there was work being done to restore the city of New Orleans as a whole but many parts, and even the people, of the city were overlooked while areas of the city with higher economic value, and more tourist traffic, were prioritized along with those individuals.

    Read More

  • Political Crisis Of 1850 Essay

    1630 Words  | 4 Pages

    The political crisis of the 1850’s is one of the most underrated influential decades in US history. Many people talk about the 1920’s and the 1940’s and 50’s; however, much of that history ─ especially of that between the late 1940’s and the late 1960’s ─ was predicated upon by the crisis of the 1850’s. To understand its importance, one must understand its composition, its origin, and its effect. The crisis of the 1850’s, predicated upon the furious debates of slavery in new western territories and consisting over debates of states’ rights versus federal power, had lasting effects directly concerning the Civil War and on the nation especially in relation to the century long ideological battle over race in America.

    Read More

  • battle for the muddy mississippi

    1928 Words  | 4 Pages

    "Take Cover!" This phrase was used daily as the citizens of Vicksburg scattered from the raining of mortars by Union guns. Vicksburg, Mississippi is a city in the heartland of the deep South. It sits on high bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River near the mouth of the Yazoo River. Settled in 1790, Vicksburg was and is an important shipping and trading center (Leonard 40). During the Civil War, Vicksburg was a key factor in the control of the entire Mississippi River. After the surrender of Natchez, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans, the Union wanted Vicksburg. The city wouldn't go easy. "Mississippians don't know, and refuse to learn how to surrender…"(Ward 420). Confederates fortified it with guns and field artillery to keep the city out of the Union's hands. The Union knew it wasn't going to be easy. In the siege of Vicksburg, Farragut tried to take the city, Grant took over, and he seized the city.

    Read More

  • Hurricane Katrina: America's Costliest Storm

    967 Words  | 2 Pages

    By August 28, evacuations were underway across the region. That day, the National Weather Service predicted that after the storm hit, “most of the [Gulf Coast] area will be uninhabitable for weeks…perhaps longer.” New Orleans was at particular risk. Though about half the city actually lies above sea level, its average elevation is about six feet below sea level–and it is completely surrounded by water. Over the course of the 20th century, the Army Corps of Engineers had built a system of levees and seawalls to keep the city from flooding. The levees along the Mississippi River were strong and sturdy, but the ones built to hold back Lake Pontchartrain, Lake Borgne and the waterlogged swamps and marshes to the city’s east and west were much less reliable. Even before the storm, officials worried that those levees, jerry-built atop sandy, porous, erodible soil, might not withstand a massive storm surge. Neighborhoods that sat below sea level, many of which housed the city’s poorest and most vulnerable people, were at great risk of

    Read More

  • Impact Of Hurricane Katrina

    1195 Words  | 3 Pages

    The population of New Orleans was steadily decreasing, between the years of 2000 and 2005, 30,000 (6%) of the population left New Orleans in search for better lives (4). The declining population shows us that before Hurricane Katrina residence were already considering leaving the city, some push factors leading them away from the city include poverty and unemployment (5). Accord to the U.S 2005 Census Bureau around 23% of the residence lived in poverty, this can be a result of the nearly 12% unemployment rate (5). With an unemployment rate double the national standard and nearly one forth the population living in poverty, the city of New Orleans had many push factors against it resolution in a decline population prier to Hurricane Katrina. At the time of the storm nearly 400,000 residents were displaced from their homes too near by safe areas or other states. The population reming in the city as decreased to a few thousand (6). A month after the disaster when the levee breaches were repaired and the flood water was pumped out of the city, residence were allowed to return to what was left of their homes. The first reliable estimate of the New Orleans population after Hurricane Katrina was an ‘American Community survey’. The survey projected that by the start of 2006 around one third or 158,000 of the population returned. By the middle of f2006 the city

    Read More

  • Hurricane Katrina

    1157 Words  | 3 Pages

    There comes a time in the world where the outcome of certain events can cause a huge social change, one of those events is Hurricane Katrina. The events that took place prior to, during and after Katrina although impact only a few places physically it was left in the minds of everyone in the world. There were many actions that could have taken place to prevent the damage of such a catastrophic event, however nothing was done. Hurricane Katrina, a category 3 hurricane struck Louisiana and parts of the Mississippi. New Orleans in particular, due to various reasons received the most damage. Katrina first started off as a small hurricane formed in the Bahamas as it moved towards Louisiana and Mississippi it became a category 5, which is the strongest it can become, then decreased to category 3 once it finally struck. The storm caused an incredible amount of damage that Hurricane Katrina was noted as the most destructive and costly natural disaster in US history. The death toll was 1,836 people with 200 bodies left unclaimed as well as over 700 people unaccounted for. Hurricane Katrina was a source of social change as people have learned from the impact it had on the mind and body of the citizens of New Orleans, the mismanagement and lack of leadership the government showed, and the substantial immediate and long term economic damage it caused the country.

    Read More

  • The Great Migration

    865 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Great Migration was the movement of two million blacks out of the Southern United States to the Midwest, Northeast and West between 1910 and 1940. In 1900, about ninety percent of African Americans resided in formed slave holding states in the South. Beginning in 1910, the African American population increased by nearly twenty percent in Northern states, mostly in the biggest cities such as Chicago, Detroit, New York, and Cleveland. African Americans left the rural south because they believed they could escape the discrimination and racial segregation of Jim Crow laws by seeking refuge in the North. Some examples of Jim Crow laws include the segregation of public schools, public places and public transportation, and the segregation of restrooms, restaurants and drinking fountains for whites and blacks (“The History of Jim Crow). In addition, economic depression due to the boll weevil infestation of Southern cotton fields in the late 1910s and the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 forced many sharecroppers to look for other emplo...

    Read More

  • The History of Hurricane Katrina

    1811 Words  | 4 Pages

    On August 29, 2005, the third strongest and biggest hurricane ever recorded in American history hit the Gulf Coast at eight o’clock a.m. The interaction between a tropical depression and a tropical wave created a tropical storm later referred to as Hurricane Katrina (FAQS, 2013). Forming over the Bahamas, Hurricane Katrina gradually strengthened as it moved closer and closer to the Gulf of Mexico. Recorded on August 28th, 2005, Katrina jumped from a category three storm to a category five storm with maximum sustained winds up to 160 miles per hour. Although other hurricanes, such as Hurricane Rita and Hurricane Wilma, exceeded Katrina, this dominant storm was classified as the fourth most intense hurricane based its pressure capacity. Once Hurricane Katrina hit land, it was pronounced as a category four storm moving slowly. While people thought that the slow speed of this storm prevented trauma, records show that Katrina did more damage than any fast-moving storm could have ever achieved (Solanki, 2013). Katrina produced abundant debris. The debris was in such large quantity that if it was stacked together on a football field, the rubble would reach the elevation of ten and a half miles. The size of Katrina also caused 90,000 square miles to be affected. Once proclaimed a category three storm, Hurricane Katrina slowed to the speed of 155 miles per hour. At this point in time, Katrina proved to be the sixth most prevailing hurricane traced in history. (Solanki, 2013). Several different aspects of life were impacted by Hurricane Katrina such as availability of gasoline, economic issues, and the ability to have an adequate supply of drinking water (Solanki, 2013). Hurricane Katrina was a large storm ...

    Read More

More about The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927

Open Document