Mississippi Flood 2011: Systems Failure and Flood Policy

Introduction

The Mississippi Flood of 2011 was one of many floods endured by the Mississippi River area and its surrounding regions. Past flooding taught lessons that were largely unheeded, as experts adhered to antiquated systems that repeatedly failed. The many vital competing interests in that geographic area are in dire need of solutions that address and protect all interests, rather than sacrificing some for the safety of others.

Historical Background of Flooding Along the Mississippi River

Legend has it that the Mississippi River floods the surrounding area every 100 years; however, that is clearly untrue, as several notable floods have occurred within far shorter timeframes. In April and May of 1927, 27,000 square miles across several states were flooded, causing 246 deaths, leaving more than 700,000 people homeless, and causing $400 million in damage (in 1927 dollars). In August and September of 2005, several states were again flooded, causing 238 deaths in Mississippi alone, 6,000 injuries with 700 still missing, displacing more than 1 million people, and costing more than $160 billion throughout the Gulf Region (in 2005 dollars).

In April 1979, Mississippi and Alabama were flooded, killing 9, causing the evacuation of 15,000, and causing more than $700 million in damage. In April 1974, the area between the Pearl and Pascagoula Basins was flooded, causing 8 deaths, requiring the evacuation of 9,000, and costing more than $9 million in damage. In February 1961, Hattiesburg, Mississippi was flooded, killing 3 and costing $6 million in damage. From March to May 2013, more than 12 million acres were flooded, damaging more than 30,000 homes and causing the evacuation of more than 50,000 people, though no deaths or injuries were reported and costs remained unclear.

From December 1982 through May 1983, a series of floods killed at least 6 people, caused the evacuation of thousands, and produced damage of $32.5 million in the Yazoo Basin; $1.5 million in the Big Black River Basin; $1.1 million in the Pearl River Basin; more than $50 million in south Mississippi; and $312 million in north Mississippi. In August 1969, several states were flooded, killing 153 people in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama and costing $950 million. In April and May 1992, north Mississippi was flooded, killing 1, injuring an undetermined number, damaging 1,700 homes, with costs estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, n.d.). Clearly, flooding in Mississippi and other Gulf Area states is a common and recurring phenomenon.

Lessons Learned—and Ignored

Experience has shown that floods occur seasonally, with heavy rains accompanying tropical storms that channel into river basins and fill them with water. Under those conditions, rivers, lakes, and other water bodies have repeatedly overflowed to submerge nearby acreage. The land neighboring rivers, lakes, and other water bodies in that area is called the floodplain. Mississippi is disposed to four types of flooding: river flooding, flash flooding, coastal or tidal flooding, and drainage flooding. Numerous areas in Mississippi lie within the 100-year floodplain, and more than 300 communities are officially designated as Special Flood Hazard Areas (SFHA) by federal authorities. Since 1892, approximately 90% of Mississippi's counties have been affected by flooding (Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, 2012, p. 6). Since 1824, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has attempted to control the flow of the Mississippi River and nearby rivers in order to avoid catastrophic floods.

The repetition of flooding demonstrates that lessons were not sufficiently applied prior to the 2011 flooding. River flood defenses need to be thoroughly reworked, according to some members of Congress, local floodplain supervisors, and other important organizations in the area. The delta is crumbling, and the eroding coastal marshes damage local fishing industries while leaving inland cities such as New Orleans exposed to the most harmful effects of hurricanes (Russell, 2011). Many experts believe the system currently controlled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is ultimately untenable. However, according to Paul Harrison, Senior Director of the Mississippi River and East Coast for the Environmental Defense Fund, the Corps "wants to continue to invest in the old system rather than look at these events as an opportunity to create a 21st-century system" (Russell, 2011).

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has set a course for the river and continually dredges it in order to force the river to flow as the Corps deems fit. In April 2011, the Corps blew out more than 2 miles of the levee at Birds Point in Missouri to divert water threatening Cairo, Illinois, flooding approximately 130,000 farmland acres with one-fifth of the river's flow. Then, in May 2011, the Corps began opening the Morganza Spillway north of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, steering water from the engorged Mississippi River into the Atchafalaya River. That water diversion flooded farms and prime oyster inlets in order to prevent the Mississippi from spilling over the levees protecting Baton Rouge and New Orleans. The significant spring floods ultimately "tested the limits of the system," which failed during the Mississippi Flood of 2011. The unusually heavy spring rains tested and eventually overwhelmed the system, causing massive levee failures and significant flooding.

Failures of the Preparedness Cycle

The Preparedness Cycle is based on federal guidelines provided by the National Incident Management System (NIMS), the National Response Framework (NRF), the FEMA Comprehensive Preparedness Guide (CPG) 101 Version 2.0, Presidential Policy Directive 8 (PPD-8), and the Homeland Security National Preparedness Goal (Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, 2012). It includes six vital activities for responding to flooding and other emergencies: planning, organizing, training, equipping, exercising, and evaluating and improving.

Planning is supposed to allow a crisis team to manage the whole cycle of a possible emergency, identify requirements for handling that emergency, and assist all stakeholders in learning their roles. The failure of planning is evident in the 2011 flood: the Corps blew out part of a levee, redirected the Mississippi River's flow, and was nonetheless unable to manage the emergency without causing $2–4 billion in property damage along the entire river system and the loss of one life (Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, 2012, p. 50).

Organization involves developing institutional structure, strengthening leadership, and marshalling qualified teams of paid and volunteer staff to respond to and recover from an emergency. Organization clearly failed because the Corps adopted a "we know best" attitude, excluding effective local staff and dismissing recommendations for refurbishing the existing system (Russell, 2011).

Training means developing vital response skills by systematically educating teams and organizations across federal, state, and local governments as well as private-sector communities. Failure of training is again evident in the Corps' exclusive, unbending approach to controlling the current, antiquated system—an approach that produced disastrous results (Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, 2012, p. 50).

Equipping means that all jurisdictions—federal, state, local, and tribal—must understand what equipment is available and what its capabilities are. While this failure is not immediately obvious, the catastrophic effects of the 2011 flood reasonably lead to the conclusion that equipment preparedness was also inadequate (Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, 2012, p. 50).

Exercising means creating opportunities to test the current system and improve its effectiveness without risk. The Corps' insistence on using an antiquated, ineffective system reveals the failure of this aspect. If anything, the Corps resisted testing and improvement. Even after the costly 2011 flood, the Commander of the Corps' Mississippi River Valley Division stated: "We used every element of the flood-control system, but my hydraulic engineers are reporting that we used about 85% of the system's design capacity. We still had a reserve" (Russell, 2011).

Evaluating and improving means that all governments—federal, state, local, and tribal—establish programs for reviewing, evaluating, and improving their response capabilities. The Corps' insistence on using its clearly inadequate current system, to the apparent exclusion of other entities, represents a failure of this final aspect as well (Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, 2012, p. 50).

Conclusion

The Mississippi Flood of 2011 was merely one in a series of floods endured by the Mississippi River area and surrounding regions, with devastating effects on life and property. Past flooding has taught lessons about the seasonal nature of flooding, particularly when tropical storms channel significant amounts of water into the area's river basins. Unfortunately, those lessons have not been adequately applied, and the current system has repeatedly failed, demonstrating that the flood-control infrastructure controlled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is ultimately untenable and in need of thorough revision.

Despite the theoretical effectiveness of the Preparedness Cycle, the 2011 flood illustrates a chronic failure across all six of its elements: planning, organizing, training, equipping, exercising, and evaluating and improving. Part of the difficulty is the Corps' insistence on maintaining an antiquated system. Another part of the problem is the competition among interests—human life, municipal structures and businesses, farming, fishing, and river navigation—particularly when one or more of those interests must be sacrificed to protect another. Though Mississippi's official Basic Plan lacks concrete recommendations, others have proposed revising the old system from top to bottom; allowing the river to run more freely through natural ponds and marshlands; establishing buffers of forests and wetlands to filter fertilizers and pesticides; rebuilding coastal marshes and the natural delta; and organizing a competition to invite experts to redesign the delta and perhaps the entire watershed in a way that adequately serves all interests.

Works Cited

Editorial Board. (2012, September 13). Mayors face daunting challenge along Mississippi River. Retrieved from http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/the-platform/editorial-mayors-face-daunting-challenge-along-Mississippi-river/article_65de5b9a-fb90-5503-9781-0b20cfd050bb.html

Mississippi Emergency Management Agency. (2012, February 6). Mississippi Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan. Retrieved from

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (n.d.). Flood history of Mississippi. Retrieved from http://www.srh.noaa.gov/media/jan/Hydro/Flood_History_MS.pdf

Russell, J. S. (2011, August 23). U.S. Army Corps flood failures on Mississippi demand new vision. Retrieved from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-08-23/u-s-army-corps-flood-failures-on-Mississippi-demand-new-vision