64 Parishes

Mississippi River Flood of 1927

In 1927, flood waters from the Mississippi River raged from Illinois south through Louisiana and Mississippi. This silent film from the Signal Corps of the Mississippi shows the devastation of the floods and the subsequent rescue and recovery efforts. The material was originally shot on 3/4″ U-matic video, made available at the National Archives facility in College Park, Maryland. Unfortunately, the transfer of the film to video was done poorly, causing some distortion of the images. The impact of the disaster, however, is evident even with the poor quality video.