As we go to the printer with this edition of Delta Business Journal, the Mississippi River is currently at flood stage. Because of that, I have been thinking about the importance of the Mississippi River Levee system and its significance to the Delta.
This week across the region, children will go to school, people will attend their jobs, farmers will be in their fields planting their crops, and the daily business of the Delta will continue on as it does every day. However, none of this would be possible without the large earthen structure that runs the length of the Mississippi Delta on the western side known as the Mississippi River Levee.
I don’t think most realize the importance of the levee. However, it is the one and only reason the Delta is habitable because it stops the Mississippi River flood waters from covering the land we live on. And today, those who own property “on the other side of the levee” are currently being affected by the flood.
Before the levee’s existence, the Delta’s population was a fraction of what it is currently. Only those who could find a spot on “high ground” (as they called it), could build a home, grow a crop, and make somewhat of a life avoiding the floods that periodically took place. And, even during other parts of the year when the river was not at flood stage, the lower areas still held water and were perfect places for mosquitoes and Yellow Fever to originate and those were just more battles the early settlers had to fight.
Not long after the Civil War, things in the Delta began to change when large timber companies realized the value of the Delta’s virgin forest and began logging operations all over the region. Thus, the clearing of the land began and makeshift levees started to appear. In later years, the U.S. Government took matters a step further and organized a levee system much smaller than the one that currently exists.
The Mississippi River Flood of 1927 that took place at Mound Landing on April 15 of that year in southern Bolivar County changed all of this. After that tragic event, the government began making plans to erect an even larger levee system and that is the levee in place today.
By the way, the Flood of 1927 was the most destructive river flood in the history of the United States, with 27,000 square miles all over the Delta inundated in depths of up to 30 feet over the course of several months in the early part of that year. The period cost of the damage has been estimated to be between $246 million and $1 billion, which ranges from $3.5–$14.1 billion in 2023 dollars. About 500 people died and over 630,000 people were directly affected; 94 percent of those affected lived in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, especially in the Mississippi Delta region.
The current levee system rivals in length of the Great Wall of China. These Mississippi River and Tributaries’ (MR&T) levees protect more than four million citizens, 1.5 million homes, 33,000 farms, and countless vital transportation routes from destructive floods all up and down the Mississippi River.
So, as you go about your daily routine, think how important the levee is to all of us here in the Mississippi Delta.
We hope you enjoy this edition of the Delta Business Journal.