On this date in 1927, much of the Mississippi River Delta was underwater as the Great Mississippi River flood of 1927 was well underway. The flood would be one of the most devastating to hit the United States. Hundreds killed and 500,000 homeless. It came before extensive flood control measures were in place on the mighty Mississippi River.
All through the fall of 1926, rainfall over the Mississippi Valley was above normal, so the river was high when the annual spring floods began. Then heavy rains of up to nine inches over Missouri and Arkansas combined with melting snows to swell the Mississippi to record levels. The result was 120 breaks through levees on the Mississippi and its tributaries. 260,000 acres of land was flooded in seven states. 600,000 people were forced to evacuate their homes, and the death toll still reached 246. The river was 80 miles wide in some places. The Flood Control Act of 1928 resulted from the horrendous disaster and led to vastly superior flood control through reservoirs and levees.
On April 21, 1927, the swollen river broke through the levee at Mounds Landing, Mississippi. The crevasse would be the largest ever on the mighty Mississippi. Several hundred black workers were swept to their death as they worked frantically, trying to raise the height of the levee. The floodwaters from the Mounds Crevasse would flood nearly the entire Mississippi River Delta, over one million acres, to a depth of 10 feet! The town of Greenville Mississippi was nearly destroyed.
