Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2007 - (Page 35)

River Flood of 1932 Control Act. Similar telegrams went to the Army Corps of Engineers, Congressman Riley J. Wilson of Ruston, and Senator Huey P. Long. On February 8, the War Department appropriated $200,000 for flood protection on the Ouachita River at Monroe. Secretary of War Pat Hurley appointed Thomas H. Jackson, president of the Mississippi River Commission, to ensure that any emergencies were met swiftly in Monroe, Ouachita Parish, and throughout the affected areas of North Louisiana. To give officials and reporters a better understanding of the scope of difficulties in the area, Delta Air Service treated them to an aerial view of the city. Participants estimated that as of January 31, a full 25 percent of the city was submerged. LESSONS LEARNED On February 11, the Missouri Pacific railway line between Monroe and Farmerville resumed. Though water remained on portions of the route, the journey was finally manageable. federal plans for the Mississippi floodway that had caused them so much trouble, and left assuring them that he would champion their cause. A month later, Major General Lytle Brown, Jadwin’s replacement as head of the Army Corps of Engineers, spoke in Monroe to business leaders, local government officials, and flood experts throughout the Mississippi Delta, advocating a flood wall and promising his cooperation in the endeavor. “A city with so many lives and so much valuable property as Monroe,” he told them, “should be protected.” Brown, too, denounced the Jadwin flood control plan, and expressed his sympathy with the arguments of Monroe against that section of the Flood Control Act of 1928. It was March. The cold was breaking, and though the Ouachita would not dip below flood level until April 12, people were hopeful and determined — with a firm resolve that only comes from a protracted battle against the elements — to ensure their safety from fuure inundations. By 1934, the floodwall was in place. Three years later, a West Monroe residents prepare for travel, ignoring cars in favor of wooden boats with outboard motors. With the water receding and the cold February air warming in March, discussions turned to preventing further calamities. Five years earlier, people thought there would never be an equal catastrophe, but 1932 surpassed all prior devastation. On February 11, Illinois Congressman Frank R. Reid, who had sided with Monroe in its Kincaid complaint against the Jadwin floodway plan, argued that the floodwall pushed by the Ouachita Citizen — a holdover from the post1927 prevention debates — was indeed the best method of prevention. “I am a friend of the people of this section,” he announced in a press conference at the Virginia Hotel, “and I want to see you get this floodwall.” Reid praised the resiliency of the people and marveled at the 2.8 million sandbags employed in temporary floodwalls lining the river on its west and east sides. “You know now the danger you face from the Ouachita River, and it is those waters you must be protected from.” He assured his hosts that his prevention endorsements were in no way related to the Works Progress Administration history was able to attest that, “Ouachita Parish, through the depression, bore the reputation of being in much better condition than a large portion of the country.” Their resiliency, in fact, made the most trying flood of the 20th century disappear from historical memory. The disaster acted as the prompt for developing a flood prevention plan. It bred racial cooperation. It led farmers to attempt radical alternatives to staple-crop dependency. Each effort to bring about change, whether success or failure, replaced the apathy, blame, and gridlock from five years prior, when “the flood of the century” washed over the area. LCV This article is reprinted with permission from the Winter 2007 edition of Louisiana History, the Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association. Thomas Aiello, Ph.D., is a recent doctoral graduate of the Department of History and Geography at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette. Winter 2007-08/LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES 35 OUACHITA PARISH DIGITAL ARCHIVE, OUACHITA PARISH PUBLIC LIBRARY, MONROE

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2007

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2007 Contents Friends Editor’s Column Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Katrina: Days of Terror, Months of Anguish Paintings by Rolland Golden The Historic New Orleans Collection The Great Ouachita River Flood of 1932 Jazz Notes Louisiana Architecture Louisiana: Where Land Meets Water Louisiana State Museum Through A Lens Sharply: An Interview with Michael Lewis MR-GO: A “miracle” mired in controversy Louisiana Foodways Louisiana Association of Museums New Orleans: An Autopsy Bookstand Sound Advice Forum

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2007

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.