The iconic terrain of the south, the Mississippi River, carries a variation of views and representations of its history. The Mississippi River is frequently blamed for causing accusations of racial discrimination and alterations to the southern region of the United States due to its historic floods. In 1927, many believed the rain would subside; sparing the communities along the coastal area of the river from what would become known as the flood that would change America. The 1920s was an era before the initiation of coordinated federal disaster management; because of this, some would contribute this to a long list of reasons as to why the Great Flood of 1927 took hundreds of lives. In “Arkansas’ Worst Disaster: The Great Mississippi River …show more content…
The first lesson would be the negligence and complacency of government authorities and the United States Army Corps of Engineers. The Unites States Army Corps of Engineers instilled false hope and inaccurate information to the communities along the coast of the Mississippi river, disabling them from having ample time to evacuate; creating hundreds of thousands of displaced persons and causing hundreds of lives to be lost because of heavily relying on the levees-only policy (Bearden, 2003). The levees in which the United States Army Corps of Engineers had reassured the communities would withstand the floods of the Mississippi valley were not adequately built to withstand the currents and the overflow of the river. Therefore, it is without reasonable doubt that the excessive faith in levees, taught the government and United States Corps of Engineers that the current flood-management system was inadequate. Another lesson that can be learned from this event is that there should have been a secondary plan and insights in place for the flood systems that should have been developed from previous floods in order to establish a resilient system. It may also be beneficial to monitor trends in the weather and the effects that it has or had on the community in order to anticipate flooding in order to develop a system within the river that is effective. A lack of sufficient communication and rescue …show more content…
Considering there are many variations of what occurred during the flood, the author kept a neutral stance allowing the reader to easily point out deficiencies and lessons to take into consideration. The author clearly helps the reader understand how important it is for the government to take the necessary steps in order to protect the public at all cost and reduce individual self-protection; jeopardizing the safety of the citizens. However, I think the author could have expanded more on President Coolidge’s hands off approach to flood and why he refused to address or visit the communities during the response and recovery efforts. The population that still resides along the coast of the Mississippi River may consider it the harshest river in the United States. From 1927 until now, communities and government officials attempt to prevent the overflow of water from making landfall, but continue to find that the Mississippi River is practically insurmountable and usually results in a substantial rescue operation. The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927 has taught many emergency managers to strive to correct deficiencies from focusing events from the past by valuing and protecting the people from communities from anticipated
On February 26, 1972 the Buffalo creek community was destroyed by a terrible flood. The flood caused many tears, pain and death. In the blink of an eye, people’s lives completely changed; lives were lost, houses were gone and families were destroyed. Buffalo Creek is one of the mountain hollows in West Virginia on the edge of the Appalachians, near the Guyandotte River. The land used to grow warm green grass, but overtime the land became a dark place with debris from mine operation spills.
Dust storms rushed into the region in January of 1932, coating the area like snow and devastating all in its path. Farmers continued to till and seed land because they thought the drought would culminate at anytime. However, their actions had more impact on the situation as storm frequency intensified. The storms affected all inhabitants of the Great Plains, both socially and economically. President Franklin D. Roosevelt sought not only to shelter affected farmers, but also to teach them how to prepare for another Dust Bowl, in case it happened again.
The state of Mississippi has went through many different changes over the years with the state of the economy system to citizens that make of this wonderful state. At one time in the state history, growth of the economy was based solely on agricultural and the sweat and tears of the African slaves. The state best producing crops were cotton, beans, corn and other crops were kept Mississippi a float. Known as the Cotton King, thanks to backs , sweat and tears of many African American forefathers.
Unlike Tennessee, Mississippi suffered from decreased farm prices throughout the depression. The great depression caused many farms to go into debt, and also a lot of banks lost many people to go hungry, because of their life savings gone to waste. . One reason that the banks went into debt is that they had loss of income. As a result a lot of African American people lost their jobs, because the owners would not be able to pay the employees their money. People who had farms had to do the most work , they had to grow their own food, rather then “ cash crop “ like cotton or tobacco .
As Kitson (2009) notes, "the hydropower projects, in many ways, represented a new form of colonization, as indigenous peoples were excluded from the decision-making process and bore the brunt of the social and environmental impacts of the dams" (p. 630). This lack of consultation and collaboration with Native American communities during the planning and approval of hydropower projects has been a significant challenge in mitigating their impacts. In fact, as Deloria and Lytle (2011) explain, "the United States government, which had a trust responsibility to protect tribal lands and resources, had approved the dam without consulting the tribal nations that would be most affected by it" (p.
“The Atchafalaya” is an article by John McPhee, concerning the flow of the Mississippi River into the Atchafalaya region. McPhee interviews several people who have jobs related to the river and the maintenance of the Atchafalaya’s water flow. The location of the Mississippi River is crucial because if it moves, it could potentially destroy all of New Orleans and Baton Rouge, and, subsequently, their status as major shipping channels. Reading this article, I gained more insight on the importance of the river for the state of Louisiana and New Orleans. A quote in the article summarizes the reoccurring theme of society versus Mother Nature: “Man against nature.
The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 was of the most powerful natural disasters of the 1900’s in 11 states along the Mississippi River from Illinois to Louisiana. The flood lasted from the beginning of April, through May, June and July and finally ended in August. During the flood, the river got to be as wide as 80 miles in some places and submerged residential areas in as much as 30 feet of water. The flood affected multiple states and the country in countless ways. Some of the ways it changed the country was in a social and political way.
The first white settlers that came to Florida thought it was a good idea to drain the Everglades, but they were wrong. Since those early settlers drained the Everglades we have altered the water system. On page 113 paragraph 3 it says “ The streams were dredged, and the Everglades were nearly drained entirely.” Thanks to those settlers we many never get the Everglades back to the way it used to
Current Reflective Essay Paper On August 25, 2017, Hurricane Harvey made landfall on the coast of Texas. It was originally set to be a category 1 hurricane and wasn 't supposed to be that bad of a natural disaster. Although a number of adding factors made Hurricane Harvey a catastrophic event, the hurricane increased levels as it reached land which was one of the biggest impacts. The main two factors that made Harvey one of the most destructive natural disasters to ever hit the United States was all the recorder rainfall over the city of Houston and the release of the Addicks and Barker reservoirs.
A review of Thunder On the River The Civil War in Northeast Florida by Daniel L. Schafer Growing up in the northern state of Illinois, a student was always taught in school that the Civil War was about slavery and president Abraham Lincoln. Reading this book gives the reader a point of view that is not normally explained in northern states. Daniel L. Schafer the Author of the Book Thunder on the river, explains in great detail with firsthand accounts of how the Civil War started, who was involved and what happened, before during and after the war. In the Preface of the book, Schafer explains how he was able to write the book; he was asked to edit the draft of Richard A. Martin 's two volume history of Jacksonville more than twenty five years
Homework 7 Gaven D. Crosby Pennsylvania College of Technology Homework 7 This paper will discuss the way that the Mississippi River, and the New Deal have affected emergency management. The Mississippi River is a river that floods quite often, almost every year. The lower portion floods more than the upper portions, and affects more people. This is due to the terrain of the areas surrounding the lower Mississippi.
The novel Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink gives an inside view of what happened at Memorial Hospital during Hurricane Katrina (2005); a disaster inside of a disaster. The lack of preparedness or ethical decision making is quite disappointing, considering Memorial hospital is located in New Orleans, Louisiana. New Orleans is well below sea level, and experiences frequent hurricanes and flooding. Memorial hospital itself had little to no plan for evacuating patients once the storm hit. Without power, many of the patients, especially those who were ventilator dependent, became at risk of death.
Not all of America responded kindly to FSA’s photos and documentaries, or to the New Deal for that matter. Many claimed photographers and filmmakers along with Eastern bureaucrats sensationalized and “exaggerated the damage of the Dust Bowl, had vilified an entire region in order to score political points for the Roosevelt administration” (Dunaway, 2005, pp. 54-55). Though many alleged FSA photos were politically driven, Stryker held steadfast to his ideals and denied they served as government propaganda (Gordon, 2006; Brennen & Hardt, 1999; Stange, 1989). Some have argued the photos themselves were not propaganda, but became propaganda because of how they pushed a specific ideology on the public.
They also include the replacement of undersized structures such as bridges. These works are necessary, as the original channels have become undersized as a result of the increase in flood flows caused by development. Flash flood also can be overcome with storage ponds of flood attenuation. Ponds such as disused mining pools can be used for flood storage. The objective is to divert the flood water through such ponds and thus regulate the outflow so that the flood peaks are attenuated.
After the flood, people can experience emotional problems. They may have lost their sense of security and have difficulty sleeping when it rains or storms, for instance. This is called immaterial damage. The consequences for people depend on the amount of water, the speed with which the water rises, whether they can evacuate, the strength and height of the houses and whether they are able to stay home to wait out the flood in a good way.