On April 21, 1927, the levee at Mounds Landing, twelve miles north of Greenville, Mississippi, gave way. The breach measured 3,960 feet wide and 100 feet deep. Water covered nearly one million acres ten feet deep in ten days.
In Greenville, the fire whistle—the prearranged signal—warned residents the levee had broken. Henry Waring Ball wrote in his diary on April 8:
"I have seldom seen a more incessant and heavy downpour until the present moment – 9 p.m. I have observed that when the river is high it is always raining. The water is now at the top of the levee."
By April 22, some Greenville neighborhoods were submerged over their rooftops. In Winterville, the Payne family was preparing to send their children off to school when someone in a car pulled up to warn them.
President Calvin Coolidge had a position on federal disaster relief. He stated it clearly that April:
"The burden of caring for the homeless rests upon the agency designated by Government charter to provide relief in disaster—the American National Red Cross."
He asked Americans to donate $5 million. No mention of federal appropriations.
The Red Cross was running 154 segregated refugee camps across the flooded 27,000 square miles. James L. Fieser, acting chairman, sent memos to headquarters: "Essential push all publicity angles next week or ten days for sake of financial drive." Herbert Hoover coordinated eight federal agencies, the Red Cross, and the Rockefeller Foundation—the first time a single federal administrator had been empowered to utilize multiple departments for disaster response.
Coolidge's system was collapsing while he described it.
Over 13,000 evacuees near Greenville were gathered from area farms and moved to the crest of the unbroken Greenville Levee. African Americans, comprising 75% of the Delta population and 95% of the agricultural labor force, were most affected. At Greenville, National Guard troops prevented refugees from leaving and outsiders from visiting. The Colored Advisory Commission reported that white inmates came and went at will without passes, while colored people were denied similar privileges.
| 1927 Flood Impact | |
|---|---|
| People displaced | 700,000 |
| Deaths | 500 |
| Cost (1927 dollars) | $246M - $1B |
| Cost (2026 dollars) | $3.6B - $14.5B |
| Area flooded | 27,000 sq mi |
Congress demanded action. Coolidge resisted calling a special session.
The levees had broken. The philosophy that regional catastrophes were state and private charity problems broke with them.
Thirteen months later came the Flood Control Act of 1928, enacted May 15. It ended the philosophy that regional disasters were solely state responsibility. It acknowledged that "the wealth of the country would be used to alleviate the suffering of its citizens." The federal government would design and construct flood control projects. The largest public works appropriation ever authorized at that time.
The Act included one provision: no liability of any kind would attach to the United States for damage from floods or flood waters at any place. This language would later play a role in legal cases following Hurricane Katrina's levee failures.
By 1950, the Federal Disaster Relief Act formalized how states could request federal help. FEMA arrived in 1979. After 1927, private insurers concluded flood risk was uninsurable at affordable prices. The National Flood Insurance Program was created to reduce future flood damage and provide protection.
The program subsidized rates to encourage participation. About 20 percent of NFIP policies pay 40 to 45 percent of the full-risk premium. Congress required communities to adopt land-use policies discouraging flood-prone development and mandated actuarially sound premiums.
The land-use policies got gamed. Developers suppressed premiums and permitted building in flood-prone areas—creating exactly the risk the system was designed to prevent.
The FEMA flood maps determining coverage today rely on outdated information. More than 40 percent of NFIP claims from 2017 to 2019 were for properties outside official flood hazard zones or in areas the agency hadn't mapped at all.
The program is $20.5 billion in debt to the U.S. Treasury. Congress forgave $16 billion in late 2017. The 2005 hurricane season drove it into massive debt, later exacerbated by Superstorm Sandy and 2017's Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria.
The continued coverage of repetitive loss properties and subsidized policies represents "one of the clearest and most obvious indicators of the NFIP limiting risk reduction and contributing to the rise of a moral hazard."
Coolidge made his statement in April 1927. Thirteen months later Congress passed the Flood Control Act. The federal disaster relief system has been operating for ninety-seven years now.