This morning I was playing a compilation cd I'd made several weeks ago, and Led Zepplin's version of "When the Levee Breaks" rolled around. It's an obvious connection, but I thought about the catastrophes in the Midwest. The song was written by Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie in 1929. It was two years after the horrific floods of 1927, and more flooding was inundating the Midwest in 1929. Cedar Rapids was under water then as it is today. I think the '27 flood was more on the songwriters' minds, however. Google "The Great Flood of 1927" and read any article. Wikipedia has a fairly accurate one. It sounds eerily familiar. A levee above New Orleans was blown in order to save the city from the flooding which had ravaged the entire Mississippi basin. Turns out it wasn't necessary. Levee breaks farther up the river had abated the flooding, just as they are doing now. Funny how the planned break then inundated the poorer areas of St. Bernard and Plaquemine Parishes instead of the richer sections of New Orleans. What happened next was analyzed again after the disaster with Katrina.
After the Great Flood, more than 330,00 displaced African Americans were rounded up and forced onto the levees in deplorable refugee camps. Some were forced at gunpoint to shore up the levees. It was one of the many reasons for the Second Diaspora, the movement from the South to cities in the North, like Chicago and New York.
It will be interesting to see how "Shrub" (St. Molly's name for Bush) will handle this disaster.
My heart goes out to all those who have lost so much.
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