the Mississippi a vast river system that spreads across nearly half the United States it can be a tremendous asset to our country yet you can be a great liability in times of flood spring 1927 a torrent of rain causes the river to explode from its banks triggering the greatest flood in American history it just ripped enormous havoc and included an enormous amount of land and nearly a million people on this episode of when weather changed history as the flood ravages the Lower Mississippi Valley it also exposes profound racial and social inequality platters exploits black sharecroppers you actually had Boy Scouts holding guns in african-american men they were part of the economic capital that many planters felt that they they owned and wealthy businessman reneged on a deal to help their poor neighbors it brings in the disparity between rich and poor who could escape the flood and who couldn't [Music] [Music] April 21st 1927 a storm of epic proportions lets loose on the Mississippi Delta the main channel of the Mississippi River is more than nine and a half feet above flood stage water threatens to unleash its fury across the land at mound landing near Scott Mississippi hundreds of black laborers struggle to reinforce a weak section of levee along an s-curve in the Mississippi River as the Mighty River whips around the bed it threatens to rip a hole in the saturated living 8am a large section of the levee collapsing a 25 foot wall of water crashes through the hole there is no chance for escape for the men working on the levee the powerful wave sweeps them away hundreds of men you drown an enormous amount of water was pouring out of this levee break on to the Mississippi Delta there were four hundred and sixty-eight thousand cubic feet of water a section that's more than double the flow of Niagara Falls the flood waters surge through the gap engulfing everything in their path it just starts spreading out throughout the protected area and anyone living behind the levee system or subject to some very fast rising water people throughout the region brace for disaster the tragedy is mound landing is the result of flood conditions that have been building for the past eight months August 1926 in the Mississippi Valley rainfall for the month is two hundred percent above normal it rained so hard there were not only floods but record floods hundreds of miles apart in the Mississippi River Basin the rains continued through the fall and into the winter as the river rises higher and higher after five months of downpours the upper basin of the river system is fully saturated river gauges measure record high water levels january first 1927 the mississippi river reaches flood stage at cairo illinois where the ohio river merges with the mississippi women the river goes into flood stage what happens is it's a gradual rise in the river and so it rides a crest like a wave and that crest moves down the river January seventh a 49 foot flood crest passes Cairo steady heavy rainfall continues into the spring five storms that spring each greater than any in the previous decade send more of water into the Mississippi water from rain swollen tributaries makes the Mississippi even more powerful as it winds its way south by the time you get to early April the river so hot people are getting excited the only protection residents have from the rising water our levees massive earth and dams built adjacent to the river banks designed to hold back flood water thousands of people work around the clock reinforcing the levees with sandbags and checking for signs of weakness well the Corps of Engineers was assuring people they could hold all the water in sight the levees were fine everything's going to be fine here still in Greenville Mississippi one of the largest cities of the Delta with the population of 15,000 residents protest the water already overwhelmed five levees upriver the crest is heading straight for Greendale the massive flood is about to expose long-standing divides between blacks and whites here the cotton industry drives the economy many of the cotton farmers are poor sharecroppers sharecropping a system of tenant farming that developed after the Civil War is widely practiced ex-slaves and their descendants worked the land belonging to plantation owners they give a share of their crop wordings back to the landlords these landlords known as platters hold an unfair advantage the relationship was a power relationship where the landlord had all the power and the sharecropper or was at the beck and call of the planter they became a very exploitative system oftentimes plantation owners would also owned stores where african-americans with purchase supplies they may need after the crops or soul instead of having a profit the sharecropper would oftentimes emerge deeply in debt black sharecroppers are also subject to Jim Crow laws which govern race relations throughout the south [Music] 87 year old Juanita tourney grew up in Greenville under her grandmother's watchful eye she recalls the racial discrimination she encountered as a child I did not try to drink water from a fountain that fed color I drank my water before I left home we couldn't go to the library we couldn't go to their school there were a number things that we could not do now in fighting the raging Mississippi wealthy white planters exploit their relationship with black sharecroppers and treat them as if they were still slaves every plantation owner would simply gather up his sharecroppers and trucks and drive them to the love it they were part of the economic capital that many planters felt that they owned and had the right to manipulate and to dispense it at their will the planters ordered the sharecroppers to work without pay filling sandbags and hauling them to the crown of the levee as the threat of flood increases the platters abusive methods ensured the blacks cooperation in some areas you actually had Boy Scouts holding guns on african-american men forcing them to stay on the levee and work April fifteenth nineteen twenty seven a storm front from the Gulf of Mexico produces torrential rain from st. Louis all the way to the Gulf the downpour pummels an already saturated Mississippi Valley the storm dumps between six and ten inches of rain the storm last six days everybody and tab was can't in those signing faults with them already and nobody knew where it's going to break or if it's going to break they were just praying that the water rain would stop and things would get better but it didn't the amount of rain was too much to the levee system to handle April 21st it's at this point that a chunk of the levee if mound landing collapses 18 miles north of Greenville killing hundreds it's only a matter of time before the massive wave of floodwater reaches Greenville coming up next on when weather changed history the residents of Greenville pray that a levee around their town will save them from the approaching water April 1927 after months of storms that dumped record-breaking amounts of rain on the country's midsection a great flood is ready to unleash its fury from Cairo Illinois down to the Gulf of Mexico rivers and tributaries are overflowing their banks the mighty Mississippi is rising high and fast for weeks the water has saturated levees up and down the river in mid-april an epic storm rages for six straight days then on April 21st the river burst through a levee at mound landing 18 miles north of Greenville Mississippi 8am in Greenville sirens blare people spring to action and rush to get out any way they can people are panicking they were getting in their vehicles and driving lickety-split but some don't have the means or money to get out of town they take refuge in the upper levels of homes and buildings others find higher ground on a levy to levies foot text Greenville the large mainline levy contains the river during periods of high water and a smaller so called protection levy encircles the town residents hope this smaller many can withstand the wave of water racing toward late that night flood waters reached the north side of Greenville the water quickly overwhelms the protection living that back protection levee was about 8 feet high and the water came in at nine or ten feet initially the water doesn't appear threatening but by morning shallow muddy water covers the streets classes Carlton's family has lived in Greenville for three generations that morning in 1927 her father Herman Calla wet visits the local cafe for breakfast just as the owner is making his escape he said well I've got the banner over here just stick see what you want and you're welcome to it so that's what daddy did he fix him some pancakes had a good meal and then he said when he left the water was up to his name's less than a mile away when he'd attorney then seven years old and her grandmother evacuate their single-story home when it happened then we had just a very short time to get out of the house her Godfather urges them to find higher draft we stood there watching the water roll across nelson street my godfather who lived in the house behind us said you see that water coming across nelson street you better come on we're going to the courthouse they rushed to the county courthouse just a few blocks away the turbulent floodwater eats away at the city's protection levy finally it burst through creating wide avenues for the water to invade the city if you were just inside the protection levy and Greenville when the water ripped open the levy you saw this great fury coming at john wiley then 17 years old is that his home with his brother when he sees the water rapidly rising John and his brother climbed to the roof to escape the dillards for the next several hours they watched the chaos that unfolds as their city is flooded we was all did those it was going to get drug that moaning people high little low cattle swimming horses and pain drug domestic animals mules cows were really at the mercy of the ground later on if they could find high ground they might survive within a matter of hours the entire city of 15,000 is submerged under 10 feet of water [Music] the next day residents are stranded on rooftops and in trees makeshift rescue crews rushed to their aid using small boats they navigate through the flooded town and bring whomever they find to higher ground herman cala wet is among the local volunteers he uses a skip to rescue nearly 200 people get in his boat and go up to a mid-calf and which is a little north of glendale and pick up people there and transfer them over to the mainland Eddie he would be looking for people up in trees they'd hear a boat of course when they'd start shouting for help but not everyone can be saved herman approaches one family and witnesses the devastating power of the flood he saw a house floating floating with a family on top of it and he was going up to to rescue them and he said all of a sudden the house instead of stump or something underwater and it just disintegrated he circled in circles around there but nobody ever came up never not he said not even one hanging in it was just engulfed to my suppose April 23rd 1927 the wall of water that crashed through the levee at mound landing has now spread across the land the break is so big it floods an area 60 miles wide to the east and 90 miles to the south churning muddy water has ripped out trees and swept away people sharecroppers cabins homes and animals overwhelmed local and state officials ask the federal government for help immediately President Calvin Coolidge appoints Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover to oversee a rescue and relief effort never before had the federal government responded to a national disaster on such a large scale Hoover had experience with relief out of World War one he was kind of persons who understood organization and Herbert Hoover put together this team that went down into the flood area to help people Hoover's first priority is to rescue those who are slanted nearly 200,000 people live in the flooded region most have been forced out of their homes tens of thousands are trapped by the swirling waters under Hoover's direction the Coast Guard and Navy run rescue operations Navy seaplane survey the area while Coast Guard boats pick up stranded people ships and barges transport flood victims to dry land and red cross relief camps but some in Greenville are intentionally left behind coming up next on when weather changed history wealthy planters used their cloud to prevent the evacuation of black sharecroppers stuck on the levees it was thought that if they were evacuated they would possibly never come back April 23rd 1927 an ocean of water covers the Mississippi Delta tens of thousands of people are stranded and desperate to be rescued the City of Greenville Mississippi is 10 feet underwater 17 year old john wiley finds shelter in the upper floor of his father's office building in downtown Greenville he's lucky the poorest residents could only find shelter on the levee most of the people on the level of black people called enamel let it go the displaced residents crowd together in the miserable weather and await rescue at night temperatures drop into the 40s they didn't have tents I didn't have cos they didn't have any kind of housing on the levee it was frankly a dangerous situation there was no water for people much less food April 25th three days after Greenville is flooded the local release committee headed by a wealthy 42 year old lawyer named William Percy votes to evacuate 13,000 people who are stranded on the levee the governor immediately deploys rescue vessels the plan is to transport the flood victims 80 miles downriver to a newly established red cross relief camp in Vicksburg but before help can arrive local planners intervene they want to stop William Percy from evacuating anyone most of those who are displaced or black sharecroppers who work on nearby plantations the white planters are convinced an evacuation would ruin them financially the planters believed that if the African Americans went to another camp or whatever they wouldn't be able to get them back to their plantations they were afraid some of the workers would skip out on them the planters appeal to Percy's father u.s. senator Leroy Percy the most powerful planter in the county Leroy agrees the black sharecroppers should not be evacuated so he talked at length with his son it son refused to reverse his position but the release committee now also sides with the planters and Leroy Percy faced with such opposition William Percy concedes he cancels the evacuation to appease the platters he comes up with another plan Percy decided to instead proposed at Greenville become serve the distribution center for Red Cross supplies under Percy's new plan all laid for the region will be shipped to Greenville then unloaded and transshipped elsewhere and of course they would need a labor force to do that and that labor force would come from those blasts people on the levees the black sharecroppers would be forced to provide labor without pay [Music] those who managed to survive the flood must now face a harsh new reality being treated as slaves that's coming up next on when weather changed history [Music] April 1927 in the days after the enormous levee break at mount landing the Mississippi floodwaters continued to search South by late April the flood-ravaged is more than 15 million acres in Mississippi Arkansas and Louisiana 600,000 people in the region are homeless the flood has now surpassed all others on record becoming one of the worst natural disasters in American history in 1927 flood was front-page news it was a massive story and of course the plight of the refugees was a big part of this story roughly 1 million Americans were flooded in that year and that was almost one percent of the entire population of the country from coast to coast concerned americans donate their time clothing and more than 17 million dollars toward the immense relief effort despite this outpouring of charity rumors of abuse begin to circulate throughout the network of red cross relief camps nowhere is the plight of flood victims worse than in Greenville Mississippi in many ways the treatment of displaced black sharecroppers in Greenville resembles slavery which had been abolished more than 60 years earlier in order to receive food rations blacks must supply free labor to prove their eligibility they have to wear labor ID tags the sharecroppers are forced to help unload red cross relief supplies fortify the damaged levees and assist with the immense cleanup effort all without pay the Greenville camp on a narrow stretch of land on top of the levee was set up with the assistance of the Red Cross under the direction of 42 year old attorney William Percy there was a lot of political power behind perseus well a lot of economic power in a lot of ways people described his running of the campus in having absolute control Percy established the camp after being pressured by his father u.s. senator Leroy Percy the elder Percy sided with local planners who were afraid of losing their sharecropping workforce William Percy is angry with his father and it's reflected in the way he runs the camp he was basically in charge of the distribution of food to all these people and he could not take out this great anger that he felt over his father's betrayal on his father so he started taking it out on the people and the refugee camps they suddenly became essentially his slave labor first he even tries to force African Americans living outside the camp to work for free during the flood teenager John Wiley takes refuge in a two-story building in Greenville he stays out of sight to avoid being forced into labor well your dad was and they'll go out that they're bullies will go around to the city picking up the Magnum wake on the level the Greenville camp is one of 150 for red cross relief camps set up throughout the region these camps house more than half a million black farm laborers and their families and less than 55,000 White's within the confines of the camp segregation and exploitation are common red cross relief is done within the context of Jim Crow laws which govern race relations in the South the camp's reflected and reproduced the racial realities of the time period in the different treatment of black and white refugees and it really became a place where local plantation owners would oftentimes have a say in how the camps were run we're talking about 1927 and the era of segregation and discrimination so when the relief started first of all the whites got the tents and the cost and the better food and the better clothing in the black relief camps people got very meager portions of food and the type of food they got was very low in terms of the nutritional scale while displaced White's received meat and canned fruits blacks get rations of bread and molasses making the camp conditions worse is another change in the weather the heavy rains and unseasonable cold temperatures subside only to be replaced with sweltering heat temperature sewer these high temperatures speed up the decomposition of dead fish floating in the flood waters the stench is unbearable those who are stranded can't escape the weather and can't leave the camp's either National Guardsmen brought in to help preserve order keep the blacks confined to the calves such is not the case in the white camps in the white camp they provide a kind of an advisory and supervisory kind of role but in the African American camp they were armed and they oftentimes prevented blacks from leaving and entering the camp on a free basis the guardsmen do not allow displaced blacks to leave the camps without the permission of the planner they were very much sort of helping to provide the enforcement mechanism that would keep African Americans in their places if you stepped out of place you'd have to pay and you have to pay oftentimes by a confrontation on with the National Guardsmen reason they were kept in to canvas was said that the planners would have access to them when the water went down and only the planters could get them out the platter is also exploit the sharecroppers through the distribution of red cross relief supplies the people who are in charge of the running of the camp and the distribution of those applied those are oftentimes be local planters local plantation owners who would oftentimes you those provisions in order to exercise control over sharecroppers and tenant farmers who were in the camp accusations of corruption circulate when white planters begin to stockpile Red Cross aid and then sell the goods to black sharecroppers on credit they learned that they could manipulate federal relief to their own advantage the planners would take the food and distribute it to their help they put it on their bill the platters methods generate income for themselves while keeping sharecroppers in debt African Americans and relief camps are not the only ones who feel discrimination as the flood crest moves south New Orleans the biggest city in the region is directly in its path here poor whites also face a harsh reality resulting from a decision by the city's business elite in the 1920s New Orleans was the economic and financial hub of the south New Orleans was by far the wealthiest city in the south it had literally double or triple the economic activity of Atlanta of Houston of Dallas of Charlotte New Orleans large shipping port connects the country's interior to the international market the city is run by a powerful group that includes bankers the mayor and the governor flood preparations have been underway for more than a month still the group has afraid the approaching crest could ruin their city which lies below sea level so they come up with a plan to divert the floodwater the banking community in the city wanted to make a definitive statement that they would never allow the mississippi river to flood New Orleans and they had the political power to ensure that they proposed to dynamite a section of the levee to create an artificial break or crevasse the thought was that if you make a crevasse south of New Orleans it's like pulling the plug in the bathtub it's going to drain the water through that and therefore the river will fall and New Orleans will be spared saving New Orleans however would be done at the expense of poor whites who live in two neighboring communities st. Bernard and Plaquemines Parish those communities would be intentionally flooded without their approval that's coming up next on when weather changed history it brings in the disparity between rich and poor who could escape the flooded who couldn't April 1927 as the massive Mississippi River flood pressed move south several levees collapse and said flood water crashing down on the land below within days large portions of Mississippi Arkansas and Louisiana are underwater and towns throughout the region residents do their best to maintain a level of normalcy despite the disaster residents use boats to get around some towns build raised walkways for pedestrian traffic one ingenious man even turns his boat into a mobile barber shop as the flood crest approaches New Orleans powerful city and business leaders hatch a plan to divert the water into two neighboring communities st. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes those communities are home to the area's poorest white residents most who live in these parishes work as fishermen and trappers in the Fertile Marsh city leaders view the wetlands as underdeveloped displacement of those who live here they say would be for the greater good of saving New Orleans mr. Parris's were chosen because most of the people they were poor and we're not on the scale of what you own thought it was you have sophisticated urbane and so forth these were extendable people April 27 following a series of closed-door meetings New Orleans leaders secure state and federal approval for their plan there is one condition the city must agree to pay reparations to the victims the president of every bank in the city the president of every business association in the city the mayor every member of the City Council they all signed a written pledge that they would make full restitution for any losses New Orleans gives the residents of st. Bernard and Plaquemines Parish two days to evacuate with little time to pack residents must leave nearly everything behind Edward Nunez then 19 years old lived with his family in a modest one bedroom house and st. Bernard Parish he recalls his parents fears new oh yeah did you leave and everything back for a charity and our son cruz as always with tatum booze on april 29th engineers dynamite a section of carnarvon levy located 13 miles below New Orleans Canal Street the first explosion throws dirt into the air but only creates a small hole 48 hours later a significant section collapses after a diver plants dynamite in front of the levee 250 thousand cubic feet of water per second flows out of the river onto the land below the river water level goes down for wealthy New Orleans the threat of flood is gone but for residents of st. Bernard and Plaquemines Parish the deluge is just beginning Edward and his brother traveled by both to see the devastation firsthand [Music] oh man go to a fairy all over straight across no role in at all you know Laura saw these photographs shot by a local photographer were taken as evidence of the flood damage residents plan to submit them with their reparation claims the murky flood water covers 600 square miles of st. Bernard and Plaquemines Parish 12,000 people are homeless but when residents of the flooded parishes begin to file their claims with the city of New Orleans they make a startling discovery the city refuses to honor its promise you are gonna do it it never crosses there was a portal gay if there's on it didn't in the end the city breaks its promise to pay reparations officials reject countless claims or paid poultry sums on those they do accept on average each family receives less than three hundred dollars for their losses in the weeks that follow City and business leaders come under sharp attack in the press for protecting the city's financial interests at the expense of others nearly 10,000 people who live in st. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes lose everything in many areas throughout Mississippi Arkansas and Louisiana the floodwater remains until July that's four months after the first levee break at mount landing finally the water has drained off the land in total the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 inundates nearly 17 million acres in seven states geographically the 1927 flood was possibly the biggest flood in American history and from Cairo to the Gulf it just wrecked enormous havoc and included an enormous amount of land the flood directly affects roughly 1 million Americans it was devastating and it just disruptive everything that that was civilization at that time if people knew as people return to their homes considerable work lies ahead people describe going back to their homes is just so sad for one thing the water that went through their homes in the mud that take their homes smelled really bad the smells were not only the smells of the house and the mud but of course rotting carcasses of animals I think for sharecroppers in the camps there was a sense that they had lost so much they had lost but haps the opportunity for economic advancement or at least the opportunity in order to continue along the same economic path that they had been on for so many years they didn't know if they would be able to produce any cotton or sugar for that year they didn't know what the land looked like when they would get back to it there's just a lot of doubts in their mind about what the future would bring for them with so many people hurt by the disaster americans begin to reconsider their views on the government's responsibility for providing relief if you measure public sentiment by letters to the editor and newspaper editorials and things like that this was a sea change a watershed moment after the flood the federal government expands its role in disaster relief agreeing to provide money and manpower in times of natural catastrophes and made people think that the federal government actually had a major responsibility to help citizens when they were in serious distressed through no fault of their own the flood also leads to a profound shift in national politics I think it was precipitated sort of the movement of african-americans from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party that's next in the conclusion of when weather changed history after the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 reminders of the devastation lingered in Scott Mississippi the raging currents that ripped through the mound landing levy dug a 100 foot deep hole in the Fertile Delta soil today those waters are still there as part of a beautiful lake known as a Blue Hole the Flood of 1927 changed the political landscape as well in 1928 Republican Herbert Hoover won the presidency his success in leading the flood relief effort one in votes across the south he benefited from the traditional support of african-americans african-americans had a historic Allegiance through Republican Party which was seen as the party of Lincoln the party that ended slavery to party of emancipation Hoover gained even more support from african-americans when he promised to look into allegations of refugee camp abuses he also pledged to develop new land appropriation programs but Hoover never followed through on land proposals the broken promises angered african-americans in the years to come blacks would leave the Republican Party by the thousands and switched their allegiance to the Democrats Oh Hoover turned his back on his feet and it was such a betrayal that you know the emotional connection between the African American leadership and a Republican Party was broken forever Hoover wasn't the only one whose image was tarnished by the flood the city of New Orleans damaged its reputation when it deliberately flooded st. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes that decision reflected the city's willingness to allow powerful men to take advantage of those less fortunate one of the things that the flood of 27 exposed is the disparity of wealth and circumstance in the United States the bitterness lingered for generations so much so that in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans rumors circulated that the levee along the Lower Ninth Ward had been sabotage there are many members of the African American community who believe that it did happen and they point to what happened in 1927 same well they did it once that's proved they do it again the 1927 flood did inspire a major change in flood management policy Congress passed the flood control act in 1928 which led to the creation of new flood control measures designed to reduce stress on the levee system since that time we've got the system longer Mississippi built up with reservoirs blood ways and levees such that if 27 were repeated we could control that event today whole levee system was strengthened and does the water got so high and it would go down a spillway the flood ended the debate over how you deal with rivers forever all over the world you have to accommodate great rivers you cannot dictate to them when you're talking about whether you never know what Mother Nature is going to throw actually [Music]