On this date in 1927, the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927 was raging. Tremendous rains all over the Mississippi River Valley during the preceding autumn and winter swelled the Big Muddy and its tributaries to record levels. Floodwaters raged southward over a wide area.
On this very date, the supposedly impregnable government levee at Dorena, Missouri collapsed. Even as water poured through the crevasse, the surge of floodwater continued pushing downriver toward the Mississippi Delta, bursting more levees as it went. The news flashed like a shockwave to New Orleans, where the Crescent City residents remembered the 1922 flood that had nearly breached their levees.
All along the swollen river, worried residents feared sabotage to their levees. They knew that a break on the opposite bank would relieve pressure on their strained levees and possibly save their towns, so the threat of sabotage was very real. Armed men patrolled their levees to prevent such activities.
In Greenville, Mississippi, thirty thousand men, including convicts and African-American laborers worked frantically to raise the height of the levees. Eventually the workers would be working at gunpoint as the situation became more desperate. They would lose the battle as the levee failed at Mounds Landing, north of Greenville. The churning brown water would cover the Mississippi Delta. The 1927 flood is the most destructive in the history of the United States.
On this very date, the supposedly impregnable government levee at Dorena, Missouri collapsed. Even as water poured through the crevasse, the surge of floodwater continued pushing downriver toward the Mississippi Delta, bursting more levees as it went. The news flashed like a shockwave to New Orleans, where the Crescent City residents remembered the 1922 flood that had nearly breached their levees.
All along the swollen river, worried residents feared sabotage to their levees. They knew that a break on the opposite bank would relieve pressure on their strained levees and possibly save their towns, so the threat of sabotage was very real. Armed men patrolled their levees to prevent such activities.
In Greenville, Mississippi, thirty thousand men, including convicts and African-American laborers worked frantically to raise the height of the levees. Eventually the workers would be working at gunpoint as the situation became more desperate. They would lose the battle as the levee failed at Mounds Landing, north of Greenville. The churning brown water would cover the Mississippi Delta. The 1927 flood is the most destructive in the history of the United States.