What Are The Lessons That Caused The Great Flood Of 1927

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

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

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