The Nation's Most Destructive Flood

Torrential rains in the fall of 1926 and spring of 1927 set the stage for one of the nation's worst natural disasters. Levees held back the water until breaks occurred at Mound Landing, Mississippi, and Pendleton, Arkansas, on April 21, 1927. By the time the floodwaters receded in August, more than 16 million acres and 162,000 homes had been flooded, 100 million dollars in crops had been damaged, over 700,000 people had been relocated to refugee camps, thousands of buildings had been destroyed, and several hundred people had died. More than 31,000 volunteers cared for their fellow citizens, rescuing, comforting, and shepherding them home. As a direct result of this disaster, Congress passed the Flood Control Act of 1928, providing federal funding and responsibility for flood protection on the lower Mississippi by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Mississippi River Commission. The Mississippi River Commission was relocated from St. Louis to Vicksburg, and the Waterways Experiment Station was created to work with the Corps' Lower Mississippi Valley Division and Vicksburg District offices. These efforts established and sustain Vicksburg as the nation's center of expertise for water infrastructure engineering.

Vicksburg, Mississippi · United States