The Nation's Responses To Flood Disasters: A Historical Account

The Early 20th Century: A Growing Federal Interest 11
President authorized some, though hardly all, otherwise marginal flood control projects in
order to provide jobs. The act provided for constructing some 250 projects using work
relief moneys. It appropriated $310 million to initiate construction and $10 million to
carry out numerous examinations and surveys. 25 The act’s Declaration of Policy stated
that:
it is hereby recognized that destructive floods upon the rivers of the
United States, upsetting orderly processes and causing loss of life and
property, including the erosion of lands, and in impairing and obstructing
navigation, highways, railroads, and other channels of commerce
between the States, constitute a menace to national welfare; that it is the
sense of Congress that flood control on navigable waters or their
tributaries is a proper activity of the Federal Government in cooperation
with States, their political subdivisions, and localities thereof; that
investigations and improvements of rivers and other waterways,
including watersheds thereof, for flood-control purposes are in the
interest of the general welfare; that the Federal Government should
improve or participate in the improvement of navigable waters or their
tributaries, including watersheds thereof, for flood-control purposes if the
benefits to whomsoever they may accrue are in excess of the estimated
costs, and if the lives and social security of people are otherwise
adversely affected. 26 (emphasis added)
The Flood Control Act of 1936 set up a two-pronged attack on the problem of
reducing flood damages. On one side, the Department of Agriculture would develop
plans to reduce runoff and retain more rainfall where it fell. On the other, the Corps
would develop engineering plans for downstream projects. In theory, the plan required
cooperation between the two agencies but included no mechanism to ensure coordination.
In reality, the major work fell to the Corps.
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ASSUMES LARGER ROLE
Record floods in the Ohio River basin in 1937 helped to sharpen federal policy
enunciated by the 1936 act. Twenty-two states were affected, 244 lives were lost, and
$31 million in relief expenditures were required. As a consequence, Congress enacted
the Flood Control Act of 1938. This act authorized the construction of a large number of
basin-wide flood control plans prepared under the authority of the 1936 Act. Cost-sharing
provisions were also changed, providing for federal assumption of the entire cost of both
reservoir and channel modification projects. The Flood Control Act of 1941 further
modified the 1938 provision by making channel modifications subject to cost sharing.
25 Moore and Moore, p. 13.
26 Arnold, Appendix A.