Great Mississippi Flood of 1927

The Event: A disastrous flood engulfing millions of acres in seven states and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless

Date: April 1927

Place: Mississippi River drainage basin

One of the worst flood disasters in U.S. history, the 1927 flood displaced 700,000 people, carried off tens of thousands of domestic animals, and covered some 16.5 million acres of land, washing away large swaths of seeded and growing crops. Evacuation and rescue efforts saved over 300,000 lives, but at least 246 people, and perhaps as many as 500, died.

The Mississippi River and its tributaries form a funnel-shaped drainage basin that draws from two Canadian provinces and thirty-one states, a region exceeding 1.2 million square miles. The formation of the Mississippi River Commission in 1879 and the implementation of the Flood Control Act of 1917 had facilitated levee building, the closure of natural outlets along the river, and the draining of lowlands. These steps contributed to the region’s commercial development but left it vulnerable to the vagaries of the weather.

A Roaring Flood

In late 1926 and early 1927, torrential rains affecting eleven states filled rivers to record levels. Winding 1,100 miles from Missouri to the Gulf of Mexico, the Lower Mississippi River had reached flood stage at Cairo, Illinois, by January 1. Heavy seasonal rains in March on the Ohio, Missouri, and Tennessee Rivers increased the size of the impending disaster.

Desperate efforts were made to fortify levees along the Mississippi and its larger tributaries. Despite assurances from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that the levees would hold, more than one million acres were covered by April 9. As the deluge continued, the Mississippi River rose so high that portions of the waterway reversed and flowed back into its tributaries.

On April 16, a government-built levee failed just south of Cairo, Illinois, and flooded some 175,000 acres. The greatest levee break occurred on April 21 at Mounds Landing, a dozen miles from Greenville, Mississippi, when a surge of water nearly three-quarters of a mile wide and more than a hundred feet deep burst through the levees, a quantity double that of Niagara Falls. The overflow covered an area 50 miles wide and 100 miles long, increasing fears that the lower Mississippi Delta would be inundated. Anxious leaders in New Orleans, Louisiana, authorized breaching the Poydras levee south of the city in order to lower the level of the river. Dynamiting of the levee commenced on April 29 and resulted in the flooding of Saint Bernard Parish.

Rescue Operations

In the aftermath of the April 21 Mounds Landing levee break, over 185,000 people were forced to evacuate, and many were trapped by floodwater; some thirteen thousand people, primarily African Americans, remained stranded on remnants of the levee because plantation owners feared that rescued sharecroppers would leave the land for good. President Calvin Coolidge appointed Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover to head a regional relief committee in cooperation with the Red Cross. However, when Hoover visited Greenville, he chose to leave the mistreated sharecroppers in the hands of the local officials.

As news of the enormity of the flood spread, volunteers, equipment, and donations poured in from all over the nation, and an estimated thirty-three thousand people went to work in the rescue and recovery effort. Spotters in airplanes located survivors clinging to trees and rooftops and sent watercraft to rescue them. As many as 330,000 people were saved from the rising waters, and 154 Red Cross camps provided food and shelter. Receding floodwaters remained high for months, with 1.5 million acres left underwater as late as July 1.

At its greatest extent, the flood covered 27,000 of the 35,000 square miles of lowlands that had previously been protected by levee systems. The federal government’s levees-only policy had contributed immeasurably to the violence of the flood, incurring losses of some $347 million.

Impact

Although relief workers provided care for African American flood victims, these sharecroppers (who comprised the majority of the agricultural labor force) were held by armed guards in unhealthy Red Cross camps, forced to work in the recovery effort, and later made to return to plantation owners. Additional misery may have been caused by the decision to flood Saint Bernard Parish, which modern historians maintain was unnecessary, as the floodwaters would probably have dispersed before reaching New Orleans. The aftermath of the flood contributed to the ongoing mass migration of southern laborers seeking employment in the industrial North, and after being largely ignored by Republican policymakers, a majority chose to support the Democratic Party. Nationwide calls for increased federal funding of flood prevention measures on the Lower Mississippi led to the Flood Control Act of 1928 and its allocation of an unprecedented $325 million for the creation of spillways and channels in addition to levee repairs.

Bibliography

Barry, John M. Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997. A comprehensive study of methods used to control the river and protect the Mississippi Delta, along with additional analysis of the political and cultural repercussions of the flood.

Bearden, Russell E. “Arkansas’ Worst Disaster: The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927.” Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies 34, no. 2 (2003): 79–97. Describes the damage and suffering caused by flooding along the Arkansas River, White River, and other Mississippi tributaries.

Daniel, Pete. Deep’n As It Comes: The 1927 Mississippi River Flood. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1996. Details the experiences of flood victims through photographs, firsthand accounts, and newspaper reports.

Percy, William Alexander. Lanterns on the Levee: Recollections of a Planter’s Son. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1973. A memoir describing the author’s experience as the head of the Flood Relief Committee in Greenville, Mississippi. Originally published in 1941, this later edition contains an introduction by noted novelist Walker Percy, the author’s nephew and adopted son.

Spencer, Robyn. “Contested Terrain: The Mississippi Flood of 1927 and the Struggle to Control Black Labor.” Journal of Negro History 79, no. 2 (Spring, 1994): 170–181. Reveals the adverse treatment of African American refugees by the Red Cross, National Guard, federal officials, and plantation owners that contributed to the breakup of the peonage system.