I think perhaps the most important impact the flood had we haven't discussed. Mr. AARON NEVILLE: (Singing) What have happened down here is the wind have changed. Mr. JOHN BARRY (Author, "Rising Tide"): You're welcome. People couldn't get their arms or heads around it. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. They reneged on all their promises, written promises; they controlled the state Supreme Court, so the lawsuits against them went nowhere. It rained real hard and it rained for a real long time. Barry, John M. Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 And How It Changed America. Courtesy Mississippi Department of Archives and History, accession no. The levees were not breached; river water did not rush in. [11], As of the census[12] of 2000, there were 35,434 people, 12,736 households, and 9,157 families living in the parish. Discomfort. Please add profiles of those who were born, lived or died in Evangeline Parish, Louisiana. The median income for a household in the parish was $20,532, and the median income for a family was $27,243. If the break happened below New Orleans, it would relieve pressure and spare the city from massive flooding. Search terms . Jolie Holland covered "Louisiana 1927" on Hummingbirds & Helicopters Vol 1: A Benefit for South Texas, a benefit album released after Hurricane Harvey in 2018.[2]. The river have busted through clear down to Plaquemines. 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 It was the only dry ground. Here's the latest on Hurricane Katrina. Parishes set up rehabilitation committees to find food and shelter for the displaced families. 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. I mean, not necessarily down South but this was a huge flood across many states. Levee guards were placed in camps at strained sites along the top of the levee and ordered to maintain them from danger of crevasse, a break in the levee which would allow water to enter the area it protected. Nearly a million people were homeless. White people were housed on the fifth floor, Black people on the sixth. There is a passage in your book where you described what it looked like when the river--the Mississippi River--finally subsided back into its banks, and I wonder if you could just read part of that for us. Levee guards were on duty and the stack of sandbags were almost even with the rising water when the levee at Mound Landing in lower Bolivar County gave way on the morning of April 21, 1927. 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. Evangeline Parish is also served by the Diocese of Lafayette with one school: Additionally, Evangeline Parish is served by one unaffiliated private school: Evangeline Parish is served by one institutions of higher education: The 1086th Transportation Company of the 165th CSS (Combat Service Support) Battalion resides in Ville Platte, Louisiana. Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline. Backwater Blues: The Mississippi Flood of 1927 in the African American Imagination. Legal Notices, Downtown Greenville, Mississippi, on April 30, 1927, six days after the levee break. John Barry, author of Rising Tide:. Mr. BARRY: That's correct. Thousands of tenant farmer shacks had simply disappeared. Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. He was in charge of disaster relief for the Coolidge administration. The federal government did not pay a single penny for the clothing, food or shelter of any one of those 700,000 people. And in fact, he managed to deliver aid without airplanes faster than aid has gotten to New Orleans in the Gulf Coast today. Louisiana, Louisiana. "A third current struck from the south. That flood dumped as much as 30 feet of water on land from Illinois and Missouri down to the Gulf of Mexico. The National Safety Council estimated deaths in the Yazoo- Mississippi Delta alone at 1,000. 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. 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. For every 100 females there were 99.40 males. Examples of the French family names are Fontenot, Brignac, Ardoin, Bordelon, Vidrine, Courville, Gaspard, LaFleur, Chataignier, Dupre, Berza, Manuel, Ratelle, Fuselier, Landreneau, Andrepont, Guillory, Soileau, LeBas, and Gobert, among others. Yarborough, was one of those whose store was threatened." I said there were almost 700,000 people being fed by the Red Cross. The river have busted through clear down to Plaquemines. The boys rescued the chickens and placed them on a scaffold out of the water. But 10 years later . The Louisiana Digital Library platform has been developed by LSU Libraries on behalf of the Louisiana Digital Consortium. The flood killed the hedges and they had to be removed.. In December, heavy rains in Oklahoma, Arkansas, and northern Louisiana filled the Arkansas and Red Rivers. I have, you know, only speculative answers. Field . In the parish the population was spread out, with 29.60% under the age of 18, 9.60% from 18 to 24, 27.60% from 25 to 44, 20.40% from 45 to 64, and 12.80% who were 65 years of age or older. 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 water is now at the top of the levee, and we have heavy showers and torrential downpours almost everyday and night. Also touched upon is the callous response of the federal government, depicted here via a fictional visit from President Calvin Coolidge and "a little fat man," where Coolidge's reaction to the devastation is a detached statement that, "isn't it a shame what the river has done to this poor cracker's land. 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. Courtesy Mississippi Department of Archives and History, accession no. The steady rainfall filled streams, bayous, creeks, and ditches in the Delta region and saturated the farmland. One of the worst natural disasters to occur in the U.S., this . Both calamities caused widespread dislocation of Black people, the first adding to a migration to the major urban cities of the north, the second to cities such as Houston and Atlanta. Copyright 2023 Mississippi Historical Society The two floods met just north of Port Barre in St. Landry Parish on May 18. The Red Cross and local relief organizations set up tent cities and makeshift housing in Marksville, Mansura, Baton Rouge, Opelousas, Crowley, New Iberia, and elsewhere. For more on Katrina's aftermath, go to our Web site, npr.org. The air is saturated with moisture, and the luxuriance of plant growth is extraordinary. I lived with her a few years when I was a baby, and I'd go back in the summers. A few Acadians such as Franois Pitre and his wife settled the area between Evangeline and St. Landry parishes, preferring the rich pre-American and pre-Civil War era Cajun planter's lifestyle over that of the humble and isolated existence of their Acadiana cousins. 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. Refugees had to file a claim to receive compensation under a complicated system that divided payments into various categories, provided that no partial payments could be made, and without legal representation. I have observed that when the river is high it is always raining. Article continues after advertisement Randy Newman, "Louisiana 1927." . Percy, William Alexander. 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. "The fire whistle and the Standard Oil plant shrieked a warning as levee guards sped through the streets, firing pistols and rifles and shouting 'crevasse, crevasse.'". 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. It filled the air with stench, and in the sun it laid baking and cracking like broken pottery, dung-colored and unvarying to the horizon.'. Thousands were left homeless for weeks, even months.. Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline. On May 12 or 13, the levee at Bayou des Glaises near Cottonport in Avoyelles Parish, north of St. Landry Parish, failed. It rained in torrents and almost without intermission for nearly 48 hours. Newman's version starts out with piano solo, but builds into including a whole orchestra. I think one is that it was so big and covered so wide an area, it was a little bit like a dog trying to bite a basketball. Ninety years ago,the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers swollen from months of rainfall burst through levees, sending muddy water into businesses, homes and farmlandacross Louisiana. It runs on the Islandora open-source digital repository software. "Louisiana 1927" is on the brilliant 1974 album Good Old Boys that tells a narrative of people in the south who feel like the rest of the country is laughing at them. That same system brought heavy rainfall to the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta, an alluvial plain located in northwest Mississippi. Search within institutions . Some people got away all right. 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. She would feed the cow and milk her and we would all come back by boat.". President Bush announced this morning that an additional 7,000 federal troops will be sent to Louisiana to help with relief efforts. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. When James H. Wilkerson, who was 8 at the time, got word that the levee near Rayville broke and the water was heading his way, he and other neighborhood children went to the woods to see for themselves, he wrote in the1981 News-Star-World report. That music inspired Lauren Ashlee Messina's dance-based piece "Louisiana Flood Stories: 1927," which runs at the Contemporary Arts Center on July 8-9. Mr. BARRY: Yeah, that's correct, and the idea is very comparable to simply pulling the plug out of the bathtub. Photograph of the Evangeline Oak during the 1927 flood. Clouds rolled in from the north and it started to rain. They're tryin' to wash . A new recording of the orchestrated version is included on the Katrina charity album, Our New Orleans, on Nonesuch Records. Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline. If you do that, the water will drain out--if you punch a hole in the levee. 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. 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 . Here's the latest on Hurricane Katrina. Both were north of Greenville at the Miller Bend and the Mound Landing levees. 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. 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. Our side of the street featured a hedge beginning at MP&L Co. corner and continuing to the corner of Clay and included Uncle Clarences and Aunt Rubys property. 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. Mr. BARRY: That's correct. Volunteers from Southwestern Louisiana Institute (now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette), Maurice, Youngsville and Lafayette joined efforts to beef up levees that protected Acadiana, he wrote. Courtesy Mississippi Department of Archives and History, accession no. Used by permission of Dr. Ted Shepherd. As the water rose on the levee, it was the levee guards duty to fill sandbags and place them on top of the levee in order to stay ahead of the water height. The enormous size of the crevasse at Mound Landing is shown in this 1928 map prepared by the Mississippi Levee District. The teenager Mildred Shepherd, whose father was an auditor for Mississippi Power & Light Company in Greenville, remained with her family at home throughout the flood with water at the top of their doorsteps. B.H. 'Organization Mississippi Flood 1927, May 16, 1927, Hoover Papers. Photograph of map by Princella W. Nowell. The water rose quickly, extinguishing the fire under the black pot and before long, there wasn't a dry spot in the yard. This decision to not let African-Americans evacuate and to work them without pay would soon bring an eruption of racial tensions. The Flood of 1927 inundated nearly 26,000 square miles in 170 counties and parishes in seven states, driving an estimated 931,159 people from their homes. . 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. Nature defeats man's efforts As heavy rainfall in 1926 continued into the spring of 1927, the Mississippi. Parrish, Susan Scott. The Flood Control Act of 1928 authorized the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to build levees, diversions and spillways for flood control. Thousands of tenant farmer shacks had simply disappeared. Courtesy Mississippi Department of Archives and History, accession no. That flood dumped as much as 30 feet of water on land from Illinois and Missouri down to the Gulf of Mexico. All rights reserved. One of the great ironies--the great irony of all that is that Greenville, Mississippi, before the flood was easily probably the best city in the South to be a black person. Coordinates: 3044N 9225W / 30.73N 92.41W / 30.73; -92.41, United States presidential election results for Evangeline Parish, Louisiana, Last edited on 22 February 2023, at 14:35, Learn how and when to remove this template message, National Register of Historic Places listings in Evangeline Parish, Louisiana, https://web.archive.org/web/20091026030323/http://geocities.com/old_time_time/many.htm, "Census - Geography Profile: Evangeline Parish, Louisiana", "Population of Counties by Decennial Census: 1900 to 1990", "Census 2000 PHC-T-4. 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. Greenvilles William Alexander Percy, son of LeRoy Percy, headed the Relief Committee in Greenville. Louisiana 1927 by Randy Newman Album: Good Old Boys ( 1974) License This Song songfacts artistfacts What has happened down here is the winds have changed Clouds roll in from the north and it start to rain Rained real hard and rained for a real long time Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline Through the early spring of 1927, the rains continued and the flood pushed downriver toward Louisiana. 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. A total of 41,673 homes were flooded; 21,836 buildings were destroyed; 62,089 buildings were damaged; and 2,836 work animals, 6,873 cattle, 31,740 hogs, and 266,786 poultry were drowned. 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. 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. One force shot straight west, wrecking houses, barns and fences as it went. . "By the time we got to the levee, we were wading in water. The Mississippi was at flood stage for months. Unpublished. 91.5 Chapel Hill 88.9 Manteo 90.9 Rocky Mount
Flowers and plants beaten to the earth, little half-drowned chickens in baskets in the kitchen, house leaking in many places. Citizens either rowed down the streets and avenues or walked on the raised walkways that were built in front of the commercial areas. Lucy Somerville [Howorth] tells in her diary how citizens of Greenville, in anticipation of a crevasse prepared their town and homes for the flood. The river rose all night. Physical rights are retained by the Center for Louisiana Studies. An entire crop year was lost. The river rose all day. She writes about life after the waters left and gives a glimpse of her everyday life. Was he a good manager of this 1927 flood relief effort? This would give the flood a shortcut to the sea and drop the river level at New Orleans, at the cost of flooding further south. I think perhaps the most important impact the flood had we haven't discussed. Dupre and Baudin Streets during Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. Most of downtown Monroe stayed dry as levees and a railroad embankment kept floodwaters at bay, the newspaper reported. She wrote, There was a low protection levee north of town. On April 27, 1927, 66 members of the Louisiana National Guard's Company B left Lafayette for New Roads in Pointe Coupee Parish to help strengthen levees on the Mississippi River, Locke Mouton of the Acadiana Area Red Cross wrote in theJuly 24, 1983, Daily Advertiser. I have, you know, only speculative answers. Scott Simon will be back next week. The flood drove many tenant farmers, most of whom were African American, off their land and, in many cases, out of the region. It was the mode of the times for yards to be outlined by carefully clipped privet hedges. I think one is that it was so big and covered so wide an area, it was a little bit like a dog trying to bite a basketball. WERTHEIMER: Now when the flood hit Greenville, Mississippi, you write in the book that people, blacks and whites together, took refuge on the highest ground they could find, which was the levee. The parish was created in 1910. The flood caused more than $400 million in losses; 92,431 businesses were damaged and 162,017 homes flooded. Scott Simon will be back next week. He's also a resident of New Orleans and Washington, DC. Mama woke me up and said the levee had broken.". 16 Yesterday and last night were somewhat memorable. A black and white reproduction of a photograph of a boat with a barber chair in Melville, Louisiana, during the great flood of 1927. In 1927, New Orleans was the most vital economic city in the South by far, and it was run entirely by bankers who didn't not even bother to consult elected officials; they simply decided they were going to dynamite the levee to reassure their correspondent banks in New York, London and Boston that they would never allow the Mississippi River to threaten the city. 1.04% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. 6George E. Scott to James L. Fieser, May 2, 1927, Hoover Papers. Louisiana 1927 Lyrics 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. WERTHEIMER: That's Aaron Neville singing Randy Newman's song, "Louisiana 1927.". In early April 1927, Henry Waring Ball of Greenville, Mississippi, wrote in his diary: April 8, 1927at 12 it commenced to rain hard and I have seldom seen a more incessant and heavy downpour until the present moment 9 p.m. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014. Thanks for your interest in the Louisiana Digital Library. Louisiana, Louisiana. There is a passage in your book where you described what it looked like when the river--the Mississippi River--finally subsided back into its banks, and I wonder if you could just read part of that for us. Raining constantly all this morning, none of us slept much. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Resident Ray Griffin, who was 76 in 1981, recalled the way everyone pitched in to fill and place sandbags around the city. 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. The Pentagon says an additional 10,000 National Guard troops will be going there and to Mississippi. They reneged on all their promises, written promises; they controlled the state Supreme Court, so the lawsuits against them went nowhere. The water, higher and stronger than any previous flood, soon engulfed a large portion of the Mississippi Delta, covering some two million acres of land in its final reach. New Orleans-based singer/pianist Marcia Ball also covered the song at several Katrina benefit concerts. John Barry is the author of "Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood and How It Changed America." They started to evacuate the city and they evacuated the whites, but the planners got together and decided that if they evacuated the black sharecroppers, the labor force for much of the Mississippi delta would disappear and would never return, and so they decided to keep them on the top of the levee and formed a camp for them for--stretched about 11 miles; thousands of people, many animals, and these people became almost slave labor. 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. Year: 2003 2:57 69 Views Become A Better Singer In Only 30 Days, With Easy Video Lessons! Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline. Snead, J., P. V. Heinrich, and R. P. McCulloh, 2002, This page was last edited on 22 February 2023, at 14:35. Their intention, apparently, was to lower the level of the river and to save the city of New Orleans. According to various estimates, there were between 250 and 500 flood-related deaths. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 98.10 males. A few have crops already growing, and cane and corn are making a brave attempt to put forth fruit despite the late start given them.. (You can unsubscribe anytime), Courtesy of Center for Louisiana Studies at The University of Louisiana at Lafayette, The Evangeline Oak during the 1927 flood. All Rights Reserved. All rights reserved. Photoshop 7 and CS, Epson Perfection Scanner 1200U, 3170, 4890, Macintosh G5, University of Louisiana at Lafayette: Center for Louisiana Studies. Some twenty thousand people were housed in Lafayette alone. As a result, huge tracts of lowland, called spillways, were set aside in south central and southeastern Louisiana. 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. Clouds rolled in from the north and it started to rain. This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. John Barry, author of Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 describes the epic disaster. The 1927 flood demonstrated the government's levees only policy for controlling the Mississippi River was inadequate. "Louisiana 1927" is a 1974 song written and recorded by Randy Newman on the album Good Old Boys. How? That's one of the reasons. Each institution contributes the digital items and the descriptive text for their collections. When it arrived, the Red Cross passed out tents, saw that kitchens and sanitary facilities were built, and organized the large camp which would grow north along the levee for seven miles. Islandora advanced search. All had been promised full compensation for their losses, but the lucky ones would get an average of only $274 each, and thousands of them would get nothing. 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. Meet NPR hosts and reporters. President Coolidge came down in a railroad train. Nearly one million people were left homeless. A 12-inch fall is reported for Cairo. Example: Yes, I would like to receive emails from 64 Parishes. In 1927, New Orleans was the most vital economic city in the South by far, and it was run entirely by bankers who didn't not even bother to consult elected officials; they simply decided they were going to dynamite the levee to reassure their correspondent banks in New York, London and Boston that they would never allow the Mississippi River to threaten the city. Advanced Search About Data Blog. Engineers chose a westward loop in the river at Caernarvon and began blowing the levee apart on April 29. SinceHurricane Katrina inundated New Orleans and the parishes to its south, there have been inevitable comparisons between the two disasters. Local officials called in the National Guard to keep order. Copyright 2005 NPR. McNeil was 6 years old in 1927, sleeping above his father's drug store in Melville. . He was in charge of disaster relief for the Coolidge administration. In 2007, the song was covered by Ray Stevens on his tribute album to New Orleans and Louisiana culture, New Orleans Moon. Courtesy Mississippi Department of Archives and History, accession no. It was a strictly political power play. Username * Password * Request new password; Evangeline Oak during the 1927 flood. They promised reparations to the people they flooded out, and they stiffed them. The people as a whole were confident the town would not get any water even should the levee break. Adding to their anger, a natural breach of the levees subsequently eased pressure on the New Orleans levee; the blasting had been unnecessary. Permission to publish and acquire images or requests for more information about materials that you find in the LDL should be directed to the institution that contributed the item to the LDL. That downpour also added more water to the Mississippi River as it rushed past New Orleans. Hundreds of sturdy barns, cotton gins, warehouses and farmhouses had been swept away. You never know where WUNC's events will take you. 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. That their way of life is disappearing. Copyright laws. Barry, John M. Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America.
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