Mama's Flood... A Story

With there having been so many blizzards, floods, and tornadoes this year in our country, I heard a newscaster say we will break the records set in 1926. I wondered, "What's wrong with him? That flood was in 1927." It was an historic flood in America, setting records for high water in the Mississippi Delta. I'm hearing on the news that with all the snow melt from this blizzard-infested winter, we are likely to break the high water records set in 1926-27.

Mama was 12 years old when the Mississippi River levee broke near Greenville, and the flood waters filled the delta area around there for miles to the east. Pap'aw heard about the levee break and climbed up on his roof to see if he could see the water coming their way. Apparently, it wasn't a rushing flood, just a steady filling up of the delta valley where their farm was located. When he could see the shimmer of the muddy water in the distance to the west, he decided it was time to go.

He packed the wagon with all the food they had, plus bedding and clothes, linens, dishes, pots and pans, hitched the mules to the front and tied the cows behind the wagon. Off they went, all of the big Coalter family, east beyond Rolling Fork to higher ground. They found a big two-story house on a rise of land. Pap'aw rented the house and the barn which was slightly down hill from the house. They shared this house for several months with some neighbors, another big family. There were 26 people in that house for a long time, about two months.

They put the animals in the UPSTAIRS of the barn. They hoisted the cows and mules up into the hayloft with ropes and pulleys. As the water came ever nearer and eventually deeply flooded the lower story of the barn, they paddled Cypress dugout canoes from the house out to the barn to tend to those animals every day.

There was another rise of land off a ways separated from the house by the floodwaters. A herd of pigs made it to that rise and milled around there for a few days, crying and screaming for food. There was nothing there for them to eat, and the Coalters and their friends had nothing to feed them. Mama said she wanted to stop her ears from the pitiful sounds coming from those pigs. Eventually, the sounds grew fainter. The pigs died.

As time went by, the smell of death surrounded them. Mama and several others in the two families crowded together in the house got sick with mumps, and fever, and other things. It was a terrible time.

Eventually, the waters receded and they were able to return to their farm near Delta City. Their house there had been completely inundated by the flood waters, and cleaning it up enough to live in it was a daunting task. The Coalters, though, were accustomed to hardship and hard work, so they spent the whole summer getting back on their feet. However, they were not able to put in a crop that year, and eventually had to move away from their beloved farm.

That flood of 1927 forever changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in the Mississippi Delta in Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Afterwards, a great many people moved north to the big cities like Chicago and Detroit where manufacturing jobs were available.

The weather-casters are predicting that floods from the melting snows of the north this year will surpass the record set in 1927. I pray that doesn't happen.