High Water leads to Slippery Slope

[xoxoxoBruce]

Smithsonian Magazine (Nov-05) has a great article about the great flood of 1927 and it’s after effects on the country. When I Googled “1927 flood” I got 919,000 hits….WTF?
Well, it seems there were a number of floods around the country that year. The flood in the heartland, down the Mississippi, was the one that is described as the worst natural disaster to hit the US, until Katrina.
Here is the timeline.

What I found most interesting was this part of the article:

But the most important and most subtle change generated by the flood involved the way Americans viewed government. Before the flood, Americans generally did not believe government had a responsibility for individual citizens. Consider the Yellow Fever Epidemic that struck New Orleans in 1905: The US public health officials would not help New Orleans until the city put up $250,000 – in advance – to cover federal expenses. Americans accepted this. Likewise, when a 1922 flood left 50,000 in Louisiana homeless, Governor John Parker, a close friend of Hoover’s, refused not only to tap the federal government for help, he declined even to ask the Red Cross, declaring, “Louisiana has not asked for aid and will not.”

Though the federal government in 1927 had recorded a record surplus in it’s budget, not a dollar of federal money went in direct aid to any of the one million flood victims (Hoover established private reconstruction corporations – they were failures). The only money that the US government spent was on supplies and salaries for the military personnel who participated in the rescue.

But Americans believed that the federal government should have done more. John Parker, no longer governor, but then in charge of helping the 200,000 homeless in Louisiana, reversed himself and desperately sought all the outside help he could get. Across the nation, citizens demanded that the federal government take action. The sentiment became concrete a year later, when Congress passed the 1928 Flood Control Act, a law that would cost more than anything the government had ever done except fight World War I; the law would also set a precedent of giving the federal government more authority to involve itself in what had been state and local government decisions.

Since most of the flood victims were farmers, common folk, or in the south where they dynamited the levees to save New Orleans, flooding the poor Blacks, the fat cats said let them fend for themselves.

Half of the Blacks, after being shut out of private relief efforts, packed up and moved north to the cities

Hoover used private corporations to help reconstruction. Sound Familiar?

The call for government action by the people spured the federal involvment in peoples lives that has grown to the nanny state we have today.

I wonder how this year's hurricanes will contribute to federal influence growth?

[Griff]

failure=growth

[russotto]

Originally Posted by Griff

failure=growth

Failure->Growth->Failure->Growth->....

It's a positive feedback loop. It will cease when the government takes up 100% of the GDP, and will end in the following disasterous collapse.

[dar512]

Randy Newman wrote Louisiana 1927 quite some time ago. It got some revived airplay after Katrina.

I liked it well enough to buy his greatest hits CD.

[classicman]

bump

Wonder if we, as a whole, still feel that was a nanny state - compared to where we are apparently headed.

[busterb]

That's also when blacks stopped voting republican. From history or A&E channel?

[Alluvial]

ISTR that's also when the Corps of Engineers began to have an expanded mission. All at the behest of politicians, you understand.

The problem with flood control is that it's impossible. We can't 'control' floods. We'd be a lot better off leaving the floodplains to mother nature. Here's an interesting policy paper regarding the future of floodplain management.

[ZenGum]

Username: Alluvial
Location: central Mississippi

Sounds like this guy is gonna know about floods.

I've read a couple of sources lambasting federal flood aid and insurance, because it is so badly worded that it basically encourages people to ignore flood risk when building, resulting in people building homes and towns in extremely flood-prone places.
I believe in community helping each other, and that government is, or at least should be, simply the organised community, so I support government assistance to disaster victims. But that doesn't mean we should encourage people to stand in the way of danger. Duh.

[Alluvial]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

Sounds like this guy is gonna know about floods.

That would be a gal.

Flood studies and all things hydrology/hydraulics are my line of work, so although I'll never know all of it, I'm working on getting a good grasp of it. Thanks for the vote of confidence.

[ZenGum]

Hey, I never claimed to be a gynacologist ...

[xoxoxoBruce]

Historically, towns and cities grew up along the waterways. Then the suburbs grew up around those towns and cities, so there is a lot of people living near the rivers. It would be a Herculean task to move them all.
And where are we going to get the food that's grown on those millions of acres of flood prone land, if nobody is allowed to continue their farms there?

[Alluvial]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Historically, towns and cities grew up along the waterways. Then the suburbs grew up around those towns and cities, so there is a lot of people living near the rivers. It would be a Herculean task to move them all.

That's all true. One thing that the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) is trying to do in the states is to get people to relocate out of frequently flooded homes & businesses. That's a bit different than wholescale relocation of towns - although that's been done too. Here is an interesting publication which showcases some mitigation stories from the 1993 floods in Missouri, including some relocations.

Many structures would benefit from simple elevation. Here is an article about a couple who had their home elevated 10 feet above the original grade. Although the home had suffered several floods, including 53 inches of water from Hurricane Georges, after the elevation it didn't, even from Katrina.

And where are we going to get the food that's grown on those millions of acres of flood prone land, if nobody is allowed to continue their farms there?

I didn't mean to relocate the farms. People living there would need to be protected from flood, although some areas are just so low that you oughtn't put a home there.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Alluvial

some areas are just so low that you oughtn't put a home there.

Like New Orleans?

[Alluvial]

Originally Posted by classicman

Like New Orleans?

IMO a big problem with NoLa is that the land is subsiding. Sure, we could put fill dirt in, or raise buildings, but that would just eventually sink too. So, mitigation there is quite problematic. (I looove that smiley !!)

From a coldly logical standpoint, the port and associated warehouse district are the only necessary things in NoLa. People other than those manning the port & appurtenances don't have a necessity to live there. (Mind you, I'm not suggesting that everyone flee the city).

From a social standpoint, the city is very rich in history and has a lot of cultural significance for the United States. It is irreplacable in that respect.

There are many historical areas in a similar pickle. As Bruce mentioned, people tend to congregate and build around rivers. How do we preserve history and heritage while at the same time promoting better floodplain management? Tough decisions.

Zen, the phenomenon you mention has been a hot topic of discussion in the industry. What happened is that developers were attracted to floodplain lands sorta by default - because the land was cheaper. In effect, the creation of the NFIP and publishing of the flood zone maps made it possible for those developers to make a good living from building things in the floodplain. Today's homebuyer isn't as savvy about what constitutes a 'good building site' as folks in more agrarian days were, and is often completely unaware of nearby flooding sources and the risks of building there.

One small correction: the NFIP isn't subsidized by the government. The NFIP is funded solely by flood insurance premiums.

The National Flood Insurance Program is premium funded and has been operating in the black for years. It has the authority to borrow up to 1.5 billion dollars from the U.S. Treasury, however, all such funds much be repaid with interest.

From here.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by classicman

Like New Orleans?

Damm. Here, here.