The Nation's Responses To Flood Disasters: A Historical Account
The Nation's Responses To Flood Disasters: A Historical Account
The Nation's Responses To Flood Disasters: A Historical Account
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2<br />
THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY: A<br />
GROWING FEDERAL INTEREST<br />
<strong>The</strong> 1927 flood event was arguably the greatest natural<br />
disaster to befall this nation in terms of total human<br />
misery and suffering.<br />
A PERIOD OF FLOODS AND ACTS<br />
<strong>Flood</strong>ing continued along the lower Mississippi with major inundations in 1903,<br />
1912, and 1913. In 1913, floods in the Ohio Valley killed 415 people and caused about<br />
$200 million in property loss. <strong>The</strong> Mississippi River Commission proposed major<br />
improvements to the levee system. Public interest in the national flood control problem<br />
after the 1912 and 1913 flood disasters led to the creation of basin-wide levee<br />
associations and other lobby groups. Under continual public and political pressure from<br />
the beleaguered states adjoining the lower Mississippi River, the federal government was<br />
inexorably drawn into greater participation in flood control.<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Flood</strong> Control Act of 1917. <strong>The</strong> first break in the wall of congressional intransigence<br />
came in 1916 with the creation of the House Committee on <strong>Flood</strong> Control. 10 Supported<br />
by congressmen from the lower Mississippi River and Ohio Valley states, the committee<br />
created a permanent forum for congressional flood control proponents. <strong>The</strong> most<br />
concrete result of the Progressive Era’s 11 flood control movement was the passage of the<br />
<strong>Flood</strong> Control Act of 1917, 12 the most important piece of flood control legislation prior to<br />
the <strong>Flood</strong> Control Act of 1936. While its scope was limited to the lower Mississippi and<br />
Sacramento Rivers (the latter devastated by hydraulic mining), the act established<br />
important precedents and frameworks for the 1936 act.<br />
10 Arnold, p. 13.<br />
11 <strong>The</strong> era lasted approximately from 1900 to 1920.<br />
12 Public Law (P.L.) 64-367.