Small Town Residents’ Homemade Dams Saved Their Houses From Flooding

It’s a painfully tense moment for the residents of Vicksburg, Mississippi. They’ve done everything they can to protect their homes and now they just need to wait and see if their efforts will pay off. The flood waters are rising dramatically outside their makeshift dams — but will the structures hold?

Inevitable disaster

Vicksburg sits along the Yazoo River, which cuts through the states of Mississippi and Louisiana. Intense rainfall has recently washed over the small city and that’s led the water levels of the Yazoo to rise sharply. The residents of Vicksburg know it in their bones: severe flooding is inevitable.

River of Death

The Yazoo has a pretty sinister nickname: the River of Death. It’s unclear where exactly that title came from but it may be a reference to the indigenous Yazoo tribe who were wiped out in the area. On the other hand, the name might be a nod to the intensity of the river’s currents, as they’ve claimed more than a few lives over the years.

Panic stations

The residents of Vicksburg know about the Yazoo River’s reputation better than most. You can imagine, then, the sense of panic that set in once it became clear this latest bout of rainfall was going to be a problem. Flooding was becoming a certainty and it’d threaten absolutely everybody who lived in the area.

Acting quickly

Something had to be done — and fast. The residents couldn’t just sit idly by and watch the floodwaters sweep over their homes and destroy their livelihoods. No, they had to do something drastic. They needed to take matters into their own hands. But how could they safeguard themselves against the fury of nature?

Reacting

Well, there was only one thing the residents could do, really. There was no way to keep the water levels of the river from rising. And stopping it from raining was obviously just as impossible. That meant they could only react to the flooding, rather than trying to prevent it. They’d have to protect their homes from the floods they couldn’t stop.

Dirt and sand

The townspeople would have to construct dams out of whatever materials they could find in a short amount of time. Dirt, sand — anything they could source. They needed to get as much material as possible and pile it up high around their houses. And hopefully, if they could do it right, these dams might just save them.

Record-breaking floods

All of this was happening back in 2011, which was a brutal time for Vicksburg. The flooding that year was notably bad, even worse than the notorious floods of 1927. The Mississippi River — of which the Yazoo’s a tributary — reached a greater depth than at any point since records began.

The Great Flood

To put things in perspective, the 1927 Mississippi River flood’s said to be among the most catastrophic natural disasters ever seen in the U.S. Sometimes known as the Great Flood of 1927, the disaster took place during the month of April and devastated the land. Hundreds lost their lives.

Months of rainfall

The dreadful catastrophe came about in the wake of the intense levels of rainfall that washed over the region for months on end. This caused the Mississippi River to rise to a higher level than had ever been observed before. Eventually, it became too much and one of the levees broke.

Breaking down

That happened on April 16 — but it was only the beginning. Five days later, a second levee gave in to the huge pressure mounting on it. There was no going back now and in the days that followed, the river’s whole levee scheme began to break down. The consequences were dire.

Overwhelmed

Entire regions soon became totally overwhelmed by the water gushing out from the river. People’s houses were lost, covered by up to 30 feet of water in some cases. And it took many weeks until the area was fully drained again, by which time a tremendous amount of damage had been inflicted.

Devastation

In terms of the land, well over 20,000 square miles were left totally covered by floodwater. That translated into several hundred thousand local residents being forced from their homes, with even more being left struggling to access food and drinking water. Around 250 lost their lives as a direct result of the flood.

Terrible response

Those in charge of the response to the flooding were later condemned for mishandling the situation. This criticism included serious accusations of racism being leveled at them. Workers from plantations in the area — most of whom were Black — were required to help strengthen levees along the river. But the conditions of this enforced labor were horrendous.

Cruel

Members of the African American community were also compelled to work in the aftermath of the flood. They were ordered to help with the clean-up but they weren’t properly compensated for their efforts. In fact, they weren’t even given the basic supplies that they needed — and one individual was shot because he protested.

Big changes

The authorities behaved in such a terrible way in the wake of the flood that a significant political shift resulted. Many African Americans began to switch their allegiances from the Republican Party — which had been in power at the time — over to the Democrats. Plus, many Black people decided to move up to northern metropolises from the South.

When the Levee Breaks

The Mississippi River flood of 1927 had a tremendous cultural impact, too. The disaster’s referenced in a bunch of books, films, and music — most notably, perhaps, in the song “When the Levee Breaks.” That was written in 1929 by Memphis Minnie & Kansas Joe McCoy and then later famously covered by Led Zeppelin.

History repeats itself

And unfortunately for the people of the region, history repeated itself once more in 2011. The Mississippi River again broke its banks and devastated its surrounding areas. It was a disaster of even greater severity to what’d gone down during 1927 — except this time some people were ready to act.

Perfect storm

This once-in-a-century flooding happened because of severe winter rains plus snow that melted and added to the levels of the river. It was the perfect storm, then, and by April the waterway had risen to intolerable levels. So it was only a matter of time before something gave in.

Lessons learnt

The authorities had learned some lessons from the catastrophes of 1927, though, so at least they were more prepared for this coming disaster. A series of levees and spillage channels had since been built, so the path of the floodwater was a little easier to anticipate than it otherwise would’ve been. But that isn’t remotely to suggest that the region would escape unscathed.

Those who didn’t make it

Again, thousands and thousands of people were forced to abandon their homes to get to safety. And sadly, once more not everyone made it out in time. A number of people lost their lives in the flood, unable to escape the quickly rising waters. Plus, large swathes of farmland were overwhelmed.

Big disruption

Fears that major cities in Louisiana would flood led to severe disruption. People left places like New Orleans and Baton Rouge in their droves, while important businesses were forced to cease operations. Gasoline production in particular took a hit, with a system of refineries having to close for a while.

Opening the spillways

Water levels were rising at a terrifying rate, so it was time to make use of the spillways. On May 9 the first was opened up a little to the north of New Orleans. And over the course of the next few days, more followed. It was hoped that these steps would mean that some of the major cities could be saved.

Economic damage

There was only so much that could be done, though, and damage was inevitable. It wasn’t just confined to the direct effects of the flooding itself, either. The economic hit was significant, too. For example, an important port in Natchez that was used to ship grain had to close down. And New Orleans’ coal exports were also seriously impacted.

Chemical disaster

Farmlands were also left totally submerged, which was obviously a huge problem. While flooding can often help with soil quality, these events did far more damage than good. This is because the floodwaters passed through agricultural areas containing dangerous chemicals that were then spread around the region by the waters.

Assessing the damage

As May ended, relief slowly came into view. The water levels started to go down, which meant it was now time to assess the damage. The authorities sent out teams of professionals to check out people’s houses to see if they were still habitable. Sadly, quite a few were deemed not to be — but how’d the properties in Vicksburg held up?

A delicate position

Vicksburg was in a very delicate position, as it sits at the point where the Mississippi River joins its tributary, the Yazoo. And that’s a pretty bad place to be after bouts of record-breaking rainfall, as occurred in 2011. The ground became saturated with water, as the rivers rose to increasingly unstable heights.

Not enough

The residents of Vicksburg knew this was going to be bad. The measures that were in place along the Mississippi River just wouldn’t be enough to deal with all this excess water. Flooding was going to happen, which was a threat to their homes and their livelihoods. So something had to be done.

Working on the fly

The residents took matters into their own hands. With a lot of effort, they gathered appropriate materials and started piling them high around their properties. They were building dams on the fly, trying to guard their homes. But would it work? Could these structures withstand all that pressure?

Island home

Here’s one place that seems to have done pretty well, all things considered. The floodwater surrounding the dam’s cut the property off from the rest of the land, essentially transforming the property into an island. But given the dreadful circumstances, the house itself appears to have come out okay.

Lots of material

The dams needed an awful lot of material in order to be effective, though. A sprinkling of sand and dirt wasn’t going to cut it here — only industrial quantities of the stuff would do the job. Somehow, many of the residents managed to source enough to build dams strong enough to hold.

Breaches

Still, some of the dams only just about managed to do their job in the face of all that water pressure. Given the barriers’ makeshift nature, water did manage to breach in certain places and spill into people’s gardens. But despite that, somehow, the dams wouldn’t necessarily collapse totally. They’d retain just enough shape to keep houses safe.

To and fro

Many of the houses protected by the dams ended up being totally separated from land. That begs the question, though: how could the owners ever hope to make it to and fro? Well, they needed to gain access to a boat to take them from their isolated homes to land and back again.

High walls

Some residents actually managed to build dams so high they couldn’t even see over them. That must’ve required so much work and material but it would’ve certainly been worth it. After all, better to destroy the view from your front window than to allow your entire home to become submerged by floodwater.

All in vain

Yet despite the success of many of these homemade barriers, not all of them were so resilient. Some unlucky residents just couldn’t do enough to save their homes. In spite of all the admirable work they put in, those buildings were still swept up by the floods. And all that effort ended up being in vain.

Deadly

And it wasn’t just property damage that blighted Vicksburg and its people. A lot worse happened, too. Yes, some residents were killed in the floods, which is a grim indication of how serious this catastrophe really was. Losing homes is bad enough but the loss of lives is obviously far more serious.

Destroyed businesses

Yet though the damage to people’s businesses pales in comparison to this loss of life, it’s still an important part of the story. Workers for a company called Dirt Works Inc. tried to construct a dam around their place of work but it failed to do the job. The barrier collapsed and the building was flooded.

Costing a fortune

The economy of the region inevitably took a massive hit because of the flooding. At its worst extent, the Mississippi River couldn’t be used for transportation purposes. That might sound like a comparatively minor issue but it still shouldn’t be underestimated. It cost the economy a fortune.

Like a painting

Despite the intense devastation left in the wake of the flooding that they depict, some aerial images of the region from this period were remarkable. Shots taken from up high sometimes looked almost like paintings, alive with colors. But none of this would’ve been any consolation for the people down below, of course.

Admirable actions

The people of Vicksburg had reacted in an extraordinary way during this disaster. Rather than accepting their fates and succumbing to despair, they decided to construct huge dams around their homes. The results were mixed, admittedly: some properties were saved, others not, and a number only partially so. Whatever the outcomes, though, these people had still done everything they could.