Rising Tide
Page 51
In addition, the levee system falls short of its design specifications. In 1996 there were 1,608 miles of main-stem Mississippi levees; 304 miles of those levees did not meet the design height. Most of these low levees fell only 1 to 2 feet below grade, but several miles of the levee system between Greenville and Vicksburg, on both the east and west banks, fell 6 feet short.
Another problem exists with the cutoffs. The river has not accepted them as final. In the fifty years since cutoffs shortened the river by 150 miles, the river has regained roughly one-third of that length and eroded some of the benefits.
But the greatest problem by far is the Atchafalaya, which offers a much shorter route to the sea, and a steeper slope, than the main channel of the Mississippi. The 1927 flood sent vast amounts of water down it, scouring it out, deepening it, building a channel capable of accommodating—and hungry for—far more water than it had ever carried. Project Flood puts even more water down it. Kemper warned that “the inevitable consequence” of this approach would be that the Atchafalaya “will soon become the main stream [of the Mississippi], and the river past New Orleans a deteriorating outlet.”
Kemper was not merely theorizing. The mouth of the Mississippi River has shifted many times. Twenty-five years after his warning, it became obvious that he was right, and in 1954 Congress passed emergency legislation to give the Corps money to prevent the Atchafalaya from claiming the entire Mississippi River. Keeping the Mississippi in its old channel has become by far the most serious engineering problem the Corps of Engineers faces. The Old River Control Structure was built to solve it, but the 1973 flood almost destroyed the structure by scouring out a hole 75 feet underwater that came close to causing its collapse. Many engineers believe that sooner or later, no matter what man does, the Mississippi will shift its channel to the Atchafalaya. And a finger of the sea will climb north past New Orleans, north to Baton Rouge.
So the story ends as it began, with man determined to assert his will over the river.
Notes
ABBREVIATIONS OF FREQUENTLY CITED SOURCES
AAH
Andrew Atkinson Humphreys
AAHP
Andrew Atkinson Humphreys Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
ACP
Association of Commerce Papers, Special Collections, Earl Long Library, University of New Orleans
ALP
James B. Eads, Addresses, Letters, and Papers of James B. Eads
CBP
Claude Barnett Papers, Chicago Historical Society
CP
Caplan Papers, Louisiana State Museum, History Division, New Orleans
D&PLCP
Delta & Pine Land Company Papers, Special Collections, Mitchell Library, Mississippi State University, Starkville
ECHPC
Emergency Clearing House Publicity Committee, in Caplan Papers, Louisiana State Museum, History Division, New Orleans
ECP
Elmer Corthell Papers, Special Collections, John Hay Library, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island
EP
Eads Papers, Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis
FC
Friends of the Cabildo Oral History Collection, Louisiana Room, New Orleans Public Library
GD-T
Greenville Democrat-Times
HFCCH
House Flood Control Committee Hearings, 70th Congress, 1st Session, November 1927 through January 1928
HHPL
Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, West Branch, Iowa
JBE
James Buchanan Eads
JC-L
Jackson Clarion-Ledger
LC
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
LL
William Alexander Percy, Lanterns on the Levee: Recollections of a Planter’s Son
LP
LeRoy Percy
MC-A
Memphis Commercial-Appeal
MDAH
Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson
M&LP
Monroe & Lemann Papers, Offices of Monroe & Lemann, New Orleans
NA
National Archives, Washington, D.C.
NOCA
New Orleans City Archives, Louisiana Room, New Orleans Public Library
NOI
New Orleans Item
NOS
New Orleans States
NOT
New Orleans Tribune
NOT-P
New Orleans Times-Picayune
NYT
New York Times
P&H
Andrew Atkinson Humphreys and Henry Abbot, Report on the Physics and Hydraulics of the Mississippi River
PFP
Percy Family Papers, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson
RCP
Red Cross Papers, Record Group 200, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
RRMP
Robert Russa Moton Papers, Special Collections, Tuskegee University Library, Tuskegee, Alabama
SBV
St. Bernard Voice
TUL
Special Collections, Howard-Tilton Library, Tulane University, New Orleans
WAP
William Alexander Percy
PROLOGUE
“The roaring Mississippi”: MC-A, April 15, 1927.
“rainy”: Henry Waring Ball diaries, MDAH.
“at 12 it commenced”: Ibid.
from 6 to 15 inches: GD-T, April 16, 1927.
greatest rainfall ever: “Report of the Sewage and Water Board of New Orleans, July 1927”; GD-T, April 16, 1927; NYT, April 16, 1927; Ball diaries, MDAH, April 15 and 16, 1927.
put on their gun boots: Interview with Florence Sillers Ogden on Mississippi Public Television, “The Flood of 1927,” complete transcript of interview in MDAH; interview with Frank Hall, December 16, 1992.
“I saw a whole tree”: Interview with William Jones, March 2, 1993; interview with Moses Mason, March 1, 1993; GD-T, April 21, 1928.
3 million cubic feet of water: Bulletin of the American Railway Engineering Association 29, no. 297 (July 1927); report of Army engineers quoted in NOT-P, April 25, 1927.
CHAPTER ONE
“one of the most”: Quoted in Todd Shallat, Structures in the Stream, p. 175.
“commanding talents”: Quoted in David McCullough, The Great Bridge, p. 347.
five greatest engineers: Universal Engineer 55, no. 1 (1932), cited in Florence Dorsey, Road to the Sea: The Story of James B. Eads and the Mississippi River, p. 307n.
Washington Irving was impressed: Charles van Ravensway, St. Louis: An Informal History of the City and Its People, 1764-1865, p. 208.
“towering ambition”: Emerson Gould, Fifty Years on the Mississippi, p. 485.
“more dangerous than”: Quoted in Floyd Clay, A Century on the Mississippi, p. 11.
“The history of the world”: Mentor Williams, “The Background of the Chicago River and Harbor Convention,” p. 223.
credited as its inventor: See for example Webster’s Biographical Dictionary (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam & Co., 1956), p. 460.
“From young manhood”: Louis How, James B. Eads, pp. 54-57.
“the personal magnetism”: Dorsey, p. 130.
Eads put on the bell: Dorsey, p. 16; How, pp. 3-8.
“I had occasion to descend”: Eads, ALP, p. 153.
need not join the gold rush: How, p. 19.
“It requires little”: Dorsey, p. 30.
“To an Absent Husband”: Published in Davenport Gazette, August 17, 1948, EP.
“I do hope and pray”: JBE to Martha Eads, August 16, 1852, Churchill Library.
“dangerous and exposed places”: Dorsey, pp. 32-33.
“whose previous pursuits”: Quoted in Joseph Gies, Bridges and Men, p. 150.
“iron muscles”: How, p. 55.
“Really he seems”: Ibid., pp. 54-57.
“Never let even a pawn”: How, p. 11.
“shut[tin
g] so emphatically”: Ibid., pp. 54-57.
“Fortune favors the brave”: Ibid., p. 57.
“Whatever credit is due”: Gould, p. 592.
Eads argued for building: L. U. Reavis, St. Louis: The Future Great City of the World, p. 177; Dorsey, p. 49.
“confidential”: Bates to JBE, April 16, 1861, EP.
“is greatly superior”: Quoted in Dorsey, p. 65.
“Only give me”: Ibid., p. 84.
possibly had access: John Kouwenhoven, “The Designing of the Eads Bridge,” p. 547.
devoted an entire chapter: James McCabe, Great Fortunes and How They Were Made, pp. 209-220.
CHAPTER TWO
“ran wild”: Henry Humphreys, Andrew Atkinson Humphreys, p. 26.
“a source of great”: Ibid., p. 35.
First he blocked a rival: AAH to C. Graham, November 21, 1858, AAHP; Gary Ryan, “War Department Topographical Bureau, 1831-1863,” Ph.D. diss., p. 201.
“serious irregularity…”: Abert to Secretary of War, quoted in Ryan, p. 188.
“capitoline guards”: Ryan, p. 199.
“I went to science”: Henry Humphreys, p. 190.
“very pleasant”: Catton, Grant Takes Command, p. 231.
“It is a work”: Henry Humphreys, p. 190.
“To sound knowledge”: Ibid., p. 57.
“the work of my life”: AAH to Charles Lyell, May 28, 1866, AAHP.
In 1835: The best brief discussion of early engineering is an essay by Terry Reynolds, “The Engineer in 19th Century America,” in Terry Reynolds, ed., The Engineer in America; see also Richard Kirby and Philip Laurson, Early Years of Modern Civil Engineering.
“not above 3”: Gene Lewis, Charles Ellet, Jr.: The Engineer as Individualist, p. 10.
“The wind was high”: Quoted in McCullough, The Great Bridge, p. 77.
he built a catwalk: Ibid., p. 77.
“At the mouth”: P&H, p. 94.
physicist Werner Heisenberg: James Gleick, Chaos, p. 121.
Engineering theories and techniques: Interview with James Tuttle, Mississippi River Commission, in Vicksburg, October 14, 1993.
“running upstream”: AAH to Lee, March 18, 1851, AAHP.
During floods: D. O. Elliott, The Improvement of the Lower Mississippi River for Flood Control and Navigation, vol. 1, p. 94.
for the last 450: Martin Reuss, Army Corps of Engineers, Humphreys Engineering Center, Springfield, Virginia, supplied these figures.
At least some geologists: Philip King, The Evolution of North America, p. 77.
Over thousands of years: Harold Fisk, Geological Investigation of the Alluvial Valley of the Lower Mississippi, p. 11.
this sedimentary deposit: Elliott, vol. 1, p. 17.
a book arguing: William Elam, Speeding Floods to the Sea.
“Concentration of force”: Report of the Louisiana Senate Standing Committee on Levees and Drainage, March 21, 1850.
“The public mind here”: AAH to Capt. J. J. Lee, March 18, 1851, HP.
“We have been to see”: Ellet to his mother, March 2, 1851, quoted in Lewis, p. 139.
“I cannot understand”: AAH to Lee, March [illegible day], 1851, AAHP; see also Todd Shallat, Structures in the Stream, p. 176.
“a most active partisan”: AAH to Lee, November 12, 1851, AAHP.
“What is the reason”: Undated note, AAHP.
“The clay itself”: P&H, p. 98.
“The opinions of Frisi”: AAH to Lee, March 18, 1851, AAHP.
“Facts of great interest”: Ibid.
“Never was there”: AAH to Lee, April 22, 1851, AAHP.
“You see how”: AAH to Lee, May 2, 1851, AAHP.
his superiors reprimanded him: See for example AAH to Lee, April 6, 1851, AAHP.
“a lesion of Enervation”: Certificate of Surgeon Randall, Mississippi Delta Survey records, NA, Record Group 77 (hereafter, RG).
Ellet began: Ibid., pp. 32-33.
“fail to give”: Charles Ellet, Report on the Overflows of the Delta of the Mississippi, 32nd Cong. 1st sess., 1852, Sen. Exec. Doc. 20; see also, House Doc., vol. 24, 63rd Cong., Doc. 918, which includes Ellet’s report reprinted, p. 27.
“a delusive hope”: Ibid., p. 28.
“The water is supplied”: Ibid., p. 28.
he proposed a comprehensive: Ibid., pp. 32-33.
“The continued illness”: Ibid., p. 24.
CHAPTER THREE
“desirous of taking”: AAH recounts this in a letter to Charles Lyell, May 28, 1866, AAHP.
“the work of my life”: Ibid.
“schooled”: Henry Humphreys, p. 324.
“an extremely neat man”: Harold Round, “A. A. Humphreys,” Civil War Times Illustrated 4 (February 1966).
“I do like”: Catton, Grant Takes Command, p. 231.
“Gentlemen”: Bruce Catton, Glory Road (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1952), pp. 72, 280.
“The charge of my”: AAH to his wife, December 14, 1862, AAHP.
“I felt like”: Quoted in Henry Humphreys, p. 190.
“In ten or fifteen”: Ibid., p. 179.
“The division has made”: Ibid.
“General Humphreys”: Round, “A. A. Humphreys.”
“It is acknowledged”: Henry Humphreys, p. 182.
“The space occupied”: Richard Wheeler, Witness to Gettysburg, p. 207.
“The newspaper correspondents”: Henry Humphreys, pp. 200-202.
“Why, anyone who”: Ibid., p. 190.
“I prefer infinitely”: Ibid., pp. 200-202.
“My mortification”: Ibid., p. 202.
“I know that”: AAH to his wife, February 26, 1865, AAHP.
“I have good reason”: AAH to his wife, November 25, 1864, AAHP.
“I do not believe”: Humphreys to J. de Peyster, June 1, 1883, AAHP.
“The reputation justly due”: Henry Humphreys, p. 219.
“Its publication constitutes”: New Orleans Daily Crescent, January 30, 1866.
Report upon the Physics: The complete title reads Report upon the Physics and Hydraulics of the Mississippi River; upon the Protection of the Alluvial Region Against Overflow; and upon the Deepening of the Mouths: Based upon Surveys and Investigations Made Under the Acts of Congress Directing the Topographical and Hydrographical Survey of the Delta of the Mississippi River, with Such Investigations as Might Lead to Determine the Most Practicable Plan for Securing It from Inundation, and the Best Mode of Deepening the Channels at the Mouths of the River.
“I am on the verge”: Quoted in Steve Rosenberg and John M. Barry, The Transformed Cell (New York: Putnam, 1992), p. 7.
“the crowning proof”: P&H, p. 324.
“‘I approve much’”: Ibid., title page.
“Every river phenomenon”: Ibid., p. 30.
“The investigations”: Ibid., pp. 404-407.
“The legitimate consequences”: Ibid., pp. 30, 186, 387.
“would, if executed”: Ibid., p. 381.
“The investigations of”: Ibid., p. 394.
“The task of criticism”: Ibid., p. 310.
“admirably executed”: Ibid., pp. 120, 199, 219.
“Mr. Ellet’s is”: Ibid., p. 219.
even today his data: Hunter Rouse and Simon Ince, History of Hydraulics, pp. 177-79.
“groundless”: Report of the Joint Committee on Levees, Louisiana State Legislature, 1850, Louisiana State Museum, History Division, New Orleans.
“It has been demonstrated”: P&H, p. 417.
CHAPTER FOUR
“far more onerous”: AAH to Senator Henry Wilson, January 26, 1869, AAHP.
“be relieved from duty”: AAH to Secretary of War John Schofield, March 9, 1869, and March 13, 1869, AAHP.
He sought to have: See AAH to Secretary of War, November 2, 1876, AAHP.
Humphreys relieved: For more on this incident, see Arthur Frazier, “Daniel Farrand Henry’s Cup Type ‘Telegraphic’ River Current Meter,” pp. 541-565.
“It may be properly”: Missouri Repu
blican, June 25, 1854.
Chicagoans charged: Wyatt Belcher, The Economic Rivalry Between St. Louis and Chicago, 1850-1880, p. 23.
But as a result: A famous lawsuit funded by St. Louis steamboat interests sought the destruction of the bridge, which would have choked railroad and western development. Abraham Lincoln argued for the railroads and won a hung jury; the bridge stayed and others were built.
twenty-two Chicago firms: Belcher, p. 157.
His experience with: Howard Miller and Quinta Scott in The Eads Bridge suggest that Eads was simply lucky in his choice of steel, and in the development of chromium steel. More likely he knew the metal fairly well, chiefly from his European travels, a probable visit to the Krupp works, and artillery experience. See also John Kouwenhoven, “The Designing of the Eads Bridge,” passim.
“impossible…”: Dorsey, p. 96.
roughly one out of every: McCullough, The Great Bridge, p. 390.
“I cannot consent”: Calvin Woodward, History of the St. Louis Bridge, pp. 15-16.
“unqualified disapproval”: Dorsey, p. 105.
“It is absolutely certain”: Elmer Corthell, “Remarks to the Western Society of Engineers, June 4, 1890, Missouri Historical Society.
“Anyone who can”: Miller and Scott, pp. 78-85.
He charmed: Frederick Finley, letter to editor, St. Louis Globe-Democrat, July 9, 1950; Gies, pp. 165-166.
“have constant control”: How, p. 15.
“about our confidential”: Kouwenhoven, “The Designing of the Eads Bridge,” p. 535.
“The very machinery”: Dorsey, p. 130.
a product he helped develop: John Kouwenhoven, “James Buchanan Eads,” p. 86.