That same system brought heavy rainfall to the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta, an alluvial plain located in northwest Mississippi. John M. Barry's book describes a natural disaster that has faded a bit in the national memory. About 81 percent of St. Landry Parish was inundated, while about 67 percent of the land in Iberia and St. Martin parishes going under water. The congressional response to the devastation, the 1928 Flood Control Act, had far-reaching social, political, and physical consequences in Louisiana and throughout the Mississippi River valley. Few had time to save personal belongings. A black and white reproduction of a photograph of the Evangeline Oak during the 1927 flood. See our upcoming events and sign up to attend. The refugees were caught between a system of legalities they did not understand and marshes still filled with water that kept them from going home. All Rights Reserved. Local officials called in the National Guard to keep order. Percy, William Alexander. And that was because of the elite, aristocratic planter class, who did feel a certain noblesse oblige toward their sharecroppers, but they didn't let that interfere with a fairly ruthless sense of dollars. One day after the waters had dropped to a depth of about a foot, Teddy (who was three years old) wanted to wade using Daddys knee boots. The Flood of 1927 showed that levees alone would not solve the problem of flooding on the Mississippi River and forced the federal government to reconsider its flood control policy. Resident Ray Griffin, who was 76 in 1981, recalled the way everyone pitched in to fill and place sandbags around the city. What the river has done to this poor . Mr. BARRY: OK. (Reading) `In the entire flooded region, 50 percent of all animals--half of all the mules, horses, cattle, hogs and chickens--had drowned. Mr. AARON NEVILLE: (Singing) What have happened down here is the wind have changed. Parrish, Susan Scott. As the water rose in the Mississippi River and levees broke in other states, all indications were that 1927 would be one of the worst years for flooding. In some places, great mounds of sand covered fields and streets. They're tyrin' to wash us away. Smith's song "was the spark for it . All rights reserved. WERTHEIMER: Mr. Barry, clearly, we're looking at incredible devastation in photographs of New Orleans and the Mississippi and Alabama coastlines: shattered homes, piles of debris that are completely unrecognizable as whatever they once were. The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 was the most destructive river flood in the history of the United States, with 27,000 square miles (70,000 km 2) inundated in depths of up to 30 feet (9 m) over the course of several months in early 1927. About 27.20% of families and 32.20% of the population were below the poverty line, including 39.10% of those under age 18 and 31.00% of those age 65 or over. Meanwhile, conditions improved in Greenville once the protection levee was finished. of submerging the alleged grave of Longfellow's Evangeline in thirty feet of flood water, oversaw the birth of triplets in an Opelousas, Louisiana, refugee center.'0 The image was that of an omnipresent Hoover . He's also a resident of New Orleans and Washington, DC. Evangeline Parish is mentioned in the Randy Newman song "Louisiana 1927", in which he described the Great Mississippi Flood which covered it with six feet of water. Mr. BARRY: Well, Coolidge chose not to run for re-election, but that was independent of a flood decision. They combined to send an estimated 1.3 million cubic feet of water per second roaring to the south. Most of the refugees went to stay with relatives. The event, called simply the Great Flood of 1927, would change Louisiana forever. by Jim Bradshaw Courtesy of State Library of Louisiana. Over the next ten days they used thirty-nine tons of dynamite to open a channel that released 250,000 cubic feet of water per second from the river. In Louisiana alone, 10,000 square miles in 20 parishes went underwater. Mr. BARRY: That's correct. Mr. BARRY: That's correct. It rained real hard and it rained for a real long time. It tells the story of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 which left 700,000 people homeless in Louisiana and Mississippi. During that fall, record rainfalls continued throughout the Mississippi River valley. Ewing, Jasper G. Flood damageLouisiana. The regions burgeoning tributaries caused the Mississippi River to overflow in eleven states from Illinois to Louisiana. The Louisiana Digital Library is a service provider only and has no authority to grant permission to publish or supply high-resolution images. Thanks for your interest in the Louisiana Digital Library. In 1927 the Mississippi's floodwaters reached from Illinois and Missouri all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. I'm Linda Wertheimer. Mr. AARON NEVILLE: (Singing) What have happened down here is the wind have changed. Parishes set up rehabilitation committees to find food and shelter for the displaced families. The Bonnet Carre Spillway was the first diversion structure built in Louisiana as a result of the 1927 flood. Courtesy Mississippi Department of Archives and History, accession no. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. As heavy rains continued in the Mississippi River drainage area above Louisiana, more than 20,000 men were put to work sandbagging levees between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Each institution contributes the digital items and the descriptive text for their collections. Lanterns on the Levee. About 100,000 people in Acadiana fled their homes during the Great Flood of 1927, Savage reported in 2002 for the 75th anniversary. I mean, not necessarily down South but this was a huge flood across many states. Here's the latest on Hurricane Katrina. User login. And the American people did not accept this. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. I said there were almost 700,000 people being fed by the Red Cross. The Mississippi was at flood stage for months. "By the time we got to the levee, we were wading in water. WERTHEIMER: When you think about the scope and scale of the 1927 flood, I wonder why it is that it hasn't passed into the sort of legend that most schoolchildren remember, like--as they do the Chicago fire or the San Francisco earthquake. MORE: What you should know about hurricanes, heavy rain and flood insurance. And that was because of the elite, aristocratic planter class, who did feel a certain noblesse oblige toward their sharecroppers, but they didn't let that interfere with a fairly ruthless sense of dollars. People couldn't get their arms or heads around it. After investigations, the committee presented a harsh report to Hoover, but he failed to take any action. Go to the levee! Nature defeats man's efforts As heavy rainfall in 1926 continued into the spring of 1927, the Mississippi. "And it held.". My mother is from there, her family is still there. "The last trainload of people pulled out about midnight May 16. Center for Louisiana Studies Archive; Evangeline Oak during the 1927 flood. THE LYRICS, by singer/songwriter Randy Newman, tell the story of the Louisiana flood of 1927, which killed hundreds and displaced hundreds of thousands across six states. Whole communities, such as Bayou Chne, built upon a ridge in the Atchafalaya River basin, had to be abandoned because they were in the path of the floodwaters that might be diverted. The Great Flood of 1927 unleashed a spring season of catastrophic events along the banks of the Mississippi River. The water is now at the top of the levee, and we have heavy showers and torrential downpours almost everyday and night. With a little fat man with a note-pad in his hand. In addition, a stingy fiscal policy that offered little aid to the flood victims, implemented under Republican President Calvin Coolidge, drove many African Americans from the party of Lincoln into the Democratic party, where they continue to be a considerable part of the constituency today. He was in charge of disaster relief for the Coolidge administration. A night of incessant storms, wind, lightning, thunder and torrents of rain. The Flood of 1927 opened the door for the populist Huey Long to make his first successful run for the governors mansion and played a substantial role in the selection of his partys candidate for the presidency. 2023 www.theadvertiser.com. Once again, housing had to be found for tens of thousands of refugees who had no relatives to stay with. The river have busted through clear down to Plaquemines. This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. McCain, William D. The Triumph of Democracy 1916-1932 in A History of Mississippi, Volume Two, edited by Richard Aubrey McLemore. And they didn't write about it. "The Methodist Church did not operate a troop again until the organization of the present Troop 12 in July 1934, under the leadership of the Rev. The people as a whole were confident the town would not get any water even should the levee break. : PI/1992.0002.007, The Flood of 1927 and Its Impact in Greenville, Mississippi, The Flood of 1927 And Its Impact In Greenville, Mississippi Lesson Plan. Discomfort. Copyright 2023 Mississippi Historical Society The Louisiana Digital Library (LDL) is the front door to Louisiana's digital cultural heritage. I mean, not necessarily down South but this was a huge flood across many states. 57. The devastating Mississippi River flood of 1927 has deservedly entered the realm of legend and lore, being one of the most costly natural disasters in American history. The community is located at the junction of Louisiana Highways 97 and 100, 5.9 miles (9.5 km) east-northeast of Jennings. Bonnes Nouvelles: good news about people, places and things in Evangeline Parish. That's one of the reasons. Most of downtown Monroe stayed dry as levees and a railroad embankment kept floodwaters at bay, the newspaper reported. WERTHEIMER: Were there any prominent politicians who vanished without a trace because of the way they handled the flood? There were 12,736 households, out of which 38.00% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 52.30% were married couples living together, 15.50% had a female householder with no husband present, and 28.10% were non-families. And it was the other place that I knew, and I was interested in the history, and heard about this flood, and I wrote the song."[1]. In Mississippi there were two levee areas of special concern. 25.80% of all households were made up of individuals, and 11.90% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. People couldn't get their arms or heads around it. For two days before the dynamiting began the National Guard and major retailers from New Orleans sent convoys of trucks to evacuate the 10,000 residents whose homes and livelihoods would be washed away when the levee was breached. The boys rescued the chickens and placed them on a scaffold out of the water. Dupre and Baudin Streets during Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. Criticism over the handling of Katrina contributed in large measure to the decision by Gov. Urged to leave, residents boarded trains for higher ground in Opelousas, Bradshaw reported. I said there were almost 700,000 people being fed by the Red Cross. The median age was 34 years. She would feed the cow and milk her and we would all come back by boat.". ", A second current traveled north, eroding a section of the railroad embankment, "allowing the water to go up into the town proper and completely inundate it," Catledge wrote. It tells the story of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 which left 700,000 people homeless in Louisiana and Mississippi. Despite strenuous objections from people living downstream, Governor O. H. Simpson and his advisors acquiesced to a plea from New Orleans civic leaders to blast a breach in the levee. Martin Parish line on May 19; Breaux Bridge and St. Martinville in St. Martin Parish two days later; then New Iberia and Jeanerette in Iberia Parish; and Franklin and Morgan City in St. Mary Parish. Officials on May 18urged evacuation of a large area that included Port Barre, Leonville, Breaux Bridge and Arnaudville. The prelude to the flood began in August 1926, when rainstorms began to swell streams in eastern Kansas, northwestern Iowa, and part of Illinois, all of which fed into the Mississippi River. Snead, J., P. V. Heinrich, and R. P. McCulloh, 2002, This page was last edited on 22 February 2023, at 14:35. The alarm that the levee had broken was given to the people of Greenville by a prearranged signal, the fire whistle. And another reason, frankly, may be a certain intellectual prejudice. Ewing, Inc. (Baton Rouge, La.) The author and her sister, Rosalie, helped their mother dig up some of her favorite plants so they wouldn't die in the flood. Similar Red Cross refugee centers were operated at Opelousas, New Iberia, Franklin and Baton Rouge. Ranking Tables for Counties: 1990 and 2000", Louisiana's Technical and Community Colleges, "Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Evangeline_Parish,_Louisiana&oldid=1140935995, Bayou Chicot Elementary School (Grades PK-8) (Ville Platte), Chataignier Elementary School (Grades PK-8) (Chataignier), James Stephens Montessori School (Grades PK-6) (Ville Platte), Mamou Elementary School (Grades PK-4) (Mamou), Vidrine Elementary School (Grades PK-8) (Ville Platte), Ville Platte Elementary School (Grades PK-4) (Ville Platte), W. W. Stewart Elementary (Grades PK-4) (Basile), Basile High School (Grades 512) (Basile), Pine Prairie High School (Grades 912) (Pine Prairie), Ville Platte High School (Grades 512) (Ville Platte), Evangeline Central School (Grades 412) (Ville Platte), Sacred Heart School (Grades K-12) (Ville Platte), Christian Heritage Academy (Grade K) (Ville Platte). Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center: Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center Shreveport: Northwestern State University of Louisiana: Vermilionville Living History Museum and Folklife Park: Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center New Orleans, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center Shreveport, Vermilionville Living History Museum & Folklife Park. Accuracy and availability may vary. A weather system that stalled over the Midwestern states in the fall of 1926 brought untold amounts of water to the Upper Mississippi River region. If the break happened below New Orleans, it would relieve pressure and spare the city from massive flooding. Note elevated boardwalks. The flood took its toll on the trees and shrubs. The laborers were not paid and resented being threatened that if they did not participate in the levee repair, or other work such as unloading the food sent on barges by the Red Cross, that they would not be allowed to have the food that the Red Cross was handing out. WERTHEIMER: That's Aaron Neville singing Randy Newman's song, "Louisiana 1927.". MORE: 4,500 added to flood zones in Lafayette Parish. It runs on the Islandora open-source digital repository software. SinceHurricane Katrina inundated New Orleans and the parishes to its south, there have been inevitable comparisons between the two disasters. Two-Year subscription (8 issues) : $35.00 You know, history was largely written back in the '20s, I think, by people who looked askance at the South because of the blatant racism, and they really didn't care that much about what happened in the area that was most severely hit, which was Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi. The federal government did not pay a single penny for the clothing, food or shelter of any one of those 700,000 people. Irma Yarborough, a native of Columbia in Caldwell Parish,recalled in the 1981 News-Star-World that on May 7, a dam on a tributary of the Ouachita in Arkansas sent water rising rapidly in Columbia. Newman's version starts out with piano solo, but builds into including a whole orchestra. Families and farm animals sought refuge on rooftops, raised railroad beds and levees. Part of that was because nobody realized how much would be washed away. WERTHEIMER: Were there any prominent politicians who vanished without a trace because of the way they handled the flood? The average household size was 2.64 and the average family size was 3.19. "Louisiana 1927" is a 1974 song written and recorded by Randy Newman on the album Good Old Boys. WERTHEIMER: Now the city fathers of New Orleans made a decision to take down a section of the levee 13 miles south of the city. Copyright laws. Here's the latest on Hurricane Katrina. One force shot straight west, wrecking houses, barns and fences as it went. Some people got lost in the flood. (See Napoleon's Soldiers In America, by Simone de la Souchere-Delery, 1999). "She said, 'Run and go on the levee,'" she recalled, adding she "jumped out the bed in my night clothes," forgetting her favorite doll which was recovered later in the mud. The air is saturated with moisture, and the luxuriance of plant growth is extraordinary. By the next day, most of Port Barre was under about 6 feet of water and on May 20, the bridge over Bayou Fuselier at Arnaudville collapsed right after refugees from the flood had crossed it, The Advertiser reported. About 15,000 acres, including areas along the Vermilion River, suffered the worst of the flooding in Lafayette, according to reports. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014. Aaron Neville Lyrics "Louisiana 1927" (originally by Randy Newman) What has happened down here Is the winds have changed Clouds roll in from the north And it started to rain It rained real hard, and It rained for a real long time Six feet of water In the streets of Evangeline The river rose all day The river rose all night Everybody in a bad humor except Jane, the cook. Another flood control structure and spillway was built in the 1950s at Morganza to divert water from the Mississippi River into the Atchafalaya River Basin, relieving pressure on levees from Baton Rouge to New Orleans. Hundreds of sturdy barns, cotton gins, warehouses and farmhouses had been swept away. Overview. Barry, John M. Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America. . Mama woke me up and said the levee had broken.". They promised reparations to the people they flooded out, and they stiffed them. The river have busted through clear down to Plaquemines. Year: 1974 2:54 210 Views Playlists: #1 The easy, fast & fun way to learn how to sing: 30DaySinger.com Perhaps the only other natural disaster in the United States that comes close to the level of devastation of Hurricane Katrina was the 1927 flood of the Mississippi River. Then, on Good Friday, April 15, 1927, more than 14 inches of rain fell on New Orleans in a single day, disabling the pumps that normally drained the city. The Pentagon says an additional 10,000 National Guard troops will be going there and to Mississippi. He said "I was born in Los Angeles, but I went to New Orleans when I was, like, a week old. They promised reparations to the people they flooded out, and they stiffed them. 90 years ago, the Great Flood of 1927 changed Louisiana Families and farm animals sought refuge on rooftops, raised railroad beds and levees. What has happened down here, is the winds have changed Clouds roll in from the north and it started to rain It rained real hard, and it rained for a real long time Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline The river rose all day, the river rose all night Some people got lost in the flood, some people got away alright The river had busted . John Barry is the author of "Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood and How It Changed America." 40.0% were of French, French Canadian or Cajun ancestry and 9.1% identified as having American ancestry. Daily Advertiser reporter Jim Bradshaw wrote in October 1999 that hundreds of volunteers worked to brace levees along the Atchafalaya River between Port Barre in St. Landry Parish and Henderson in St. Martin Parish. Thousands of tenant farmer shacks had simply disappeared. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998. My father, J.D. As heavy rainfall in 1926 continued into the spring of 1927, the Mississippi River began cresting in places like Cairo, Illinois, sending tons of water rushing southto Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi. Mayor of Greenville John Aloysius Cannons notes show the confusion among the people as the event happened on April 21, 1927. Information about the Louisiana Digital Consortium can be found here: http://louisianadigitalconsortium.org. 91.5 Chapel Hill 88.9 Manteo 90.9 Rocky Mount They migrated by the thousands to Chicago, Detroit, and other northern cities, changing the urban landscape in those places. The crevasse was so huge it allowed a volume of raging water that covered nearly one million acres with water ten feet deep in ten days. 70537. Louisiana, Louisiana. River appallingly high, and levees in very precarious condition. Both caused disruptions of life in southern Louisiana for thousands of people that arguably could be outranked only by the destruction caused during the Civil War. Area code. He joins us now from his office in Washington. Courtesy Mississippi Department of Archives and History, accession no. The parish was named Evangeline in honor of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's narrative poem, Evangeline. The event, called simply the Great Flood of 1927, would change Louisiana forever. Some prominent English surnames include Chapman, Kershaw, Young, Reed, Langley, Tate and Buller. That flood dumped as much as 30 feet of water on land from Illinois and Missouri down to the Gulf of Mexico. NPR will continue to cover this story throughout the day. Greenvilles William Alexander Percy, son of LeRoy Percy, headed the Relief Committee in Greenville. On the fields, in the forests, in streets and yards and homes and businesses and barns, the water left a reeking muck. In the days that followed, water from the levee breaks spread to the south. Ville Platte, Louisiana, the seat of Evangeline Parish, was itself so named by one of Napoleon Bonaparte's former soldiers, Adjutant Major Marcellin Garand (1781-1852), of Savoy, France. 69.0% were White, 28.3% Black or African American, 0.3% Asian, 0.3% Native American, 1.0% of some other race and 1.1% of two or more races. Some people got away all right. Meet NPR hosts and reporters. Courtesy Mississippi Department of Archives and History, accession no. When the water finally subsided, the Red Cross provided seed, tools, and rations to farm families facing the daunting task of surviving the winter and starting a new crop in the spring. Princella Wilkerson Nowell lives in Greenville, Mississippi, and teaches Spanish at Washington School. But in the late 1800s, the Mississippi River Commission adopted a levees-only policy, which entailed the construction of levees that ran almost the full length of the river. That downpour also added more water to the Mississippi River as it rushed past New Orleans. Mayor Cannon and several leaders decided to stop the continuing flow of water into Greenville and to prevent the common occurrence of a June rise, the second assault of water, from entering the town. Privacy Policy, Center for Louisiana Studies at The University of Louisiana at Lafayette, The Louisiana Endowment has included this work in. The flood drove many tenant farmers, most of whom were African American, off their land and, in many cases, out of the region. The majority of the area was originally settled by French Canadian colonists and former colonial marines (coureurs de bois) from such outposts as Fort Toulouse and Fort Kaskaskia and later included 19th-century French-speaking soldiers and immigrant families. You know, tens of thousands of whom were living on tops of levees, some of which were only eight feet across with the river on one side and the flood on the other. That flood dumped as much as 30 feet of water on land from Illinois and Missouri down to the Gulf of Mexico. Courtesy of Center for Louisiana Studies at The University of Louisiana at Lafayette The Evangeline Oak during the 1927 flood. Was he a good manager of this 1927 flood relief effort? People of Spanish Canary Islands heritage (Isleos) can be observed to have settled in the Parish as well, bringing names like Aguillard, Casaneuva, De Soto, Ortego, Rozas, and Segura. Mr. BARRY: Well, Coolidge chose not to run for re-election, but that was independent of a flood decision. WERTHEIMER: John Barry is the author of "Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America." A refugee camp was established on the levee at the end of Washington Avenue in Greenville. One-Year subscription (4 issues) : $20.00, Two-Year subscription (8 issues) : $35.00, 64 Parishes 2023. Most settled for pennies on the dollar, and practically all of them remembered that it was a man-made catastrophe that put them where they were. He joins us now from his office in Washington. Used by permission of Dr. Ted Shepherd. This unit belongs to the 139th RSG (regional support group). : PI/ 1992.0002.039, The Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad Station in Helm, Mississippi, on April 29, 1927. You know, the Greenville public schools actually--while other Mississippi counties seriously debated whether they wanted to teach African-Americans to read--in Greenville African-Americans were being taught Latin. Scott Simon will be back next week. Local and state agencies did what they could to shore up levees along the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers and adjoining waterways from Richland Parish south to St. Landry Parish. "Striking swiftly in the early hours of the morning, the gorged Atchafalaya tore aside levee barriers and turned its full force on (Melville) today, driving residents from their homes into the streets, attired in their night clothing," The Daily Advertiser reported May 17, 1927. Example: Yes, I would like to receive emails from 64 Parishes. The flood killed the hedges and they had to be removed.. Aunt Ruby lost her fruit and nut trees, purple plums, peaches and apples along with an English walnut tree which was an oddity of this particular section of the country. Physical rights are retained by the Center for Louisiana Studies. That's one of the reasons. While her mother did laundry, boiling clothes in a black pot in the yard, the children played in the yard "when we noticed water running down the road ditches," she said. In a 2002 Daily Advertiser report by James Savage, the 89-year-old recalled her grandmother was up at 5 a.m.hanging laundry when a couple told her the levee at Melville had broken. The Mississippi River remained at flood stage for a record 153 days. A special celebratory parade was held July 4, 1927. New Orleans received 11.16 inches of rain in Februarycompared to an average of 4.4 inches for the monthand steady rainfalls thereafter. All rights reserved. I lived with her a few years when I was a baby, and I'd go back in the summers. Some six hundred prefabricated cabins were sent to St. Martin Parish and more like them elsewhere to temporarily replace destroyed housing.". Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. A boat eventually took them to a Red Cross camp where they were assigned to a tent with army cots and blankets that was their home for at least two weeks. Nearly a million people were homeless. fpoc . WERTHEIMER: John Barry is the author of "Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America." The Louisiana Digital Library (LDL) is composed of collections from many different institutions. The financial leaders from New Orleans estimated that claims against a fund set up to compensate the victims would be between $2 million and $6 million. As the people of Greenville watched the river rise they waited for the fire alarm. Join us for this ride! WERTHEIMER: When you think about the scope and scale of the 1927 flood, I wonder why it is that it hasn't passed into the sort of legend that most schoolchildren remember, like--as they do the Chicago fire or the San Francisco earthquake. Louisiana, Louisiana. The disaster is credited with sparking one of the great voting movements of the 20th century -- the shift in Southern black allegiance from the Republican to the Democratic Party -- and with spurring . Unidentified, One-Year subscription (4 issues) : $20.00, Two-Year subscription (8 issues) : $35.00, 64 Parishes 2023. The Red Cross, he said, had chartered a steam boat from Standard Oil Company, where he worked, to evacuate people along with convicts from the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. 4,500 added to flood zones in Lafayette Parish, What you should know about hurricanes, heavy rain and flood insurance, Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. Islandora advanced search. While these levees prevented flooding for a period, they proved unable to withstand the floodwaters of 1927. And the American people did not accept this. 25.71% reported speaking French or Cajun French at home, the highest percentage of any Louisiana parish.[13]. Mr. BARRY: He did a magnificent job in managing the logistics of feeding, delivering aid, shelter to 700,000 people, and half of whom were living in tents.