INT: Describe what happens when levees break upriver.

JB: When the levees upriver break, it lets water out of the river. So, therefore, the level in the river gets lower. In fact, in every flood there's concerns about sabotage, 'cause if the levee on one side of the river breaks, that side floods, but the people on the other side of the river are safe. And, in fact, there were at least a dozen people killed in separate gun battles in 1927 over attempts to sabotage the levee. And, in fact, in Vicksburg, the record on the Vicksburg gauge is not 1927. The reason is the water had spread out to Monroe, Louisiana, 70 miles away. So, obviously, that's going to lower the water level.

INT: Tell me Jadwin's response and Hoover's response when they were asked to weigh in on the levy.

JB: Well, before the City of New Orleans could do this, they needed permission. And they needed it from both the governor and the federal government. Hoover was then Secretary of Congress. He and Jadwin were actually coming down the river on an inspection boat and one of the New Orleans elite took a motorboat up the river to meet on board. And Hoover and Jadwin greeted this New Orleans delegation warmly and as soon as the people from New Orleans started to explain what they wanted, Hoover stood up and walked out. He wanted no part of it. He was already running for President and this was too dirty for him. He simply said, "That's General Jadwin's business," 'cause Jadwin had the legal authority. And Jadwin finally went along only if New Orleans promised to, among other things, fully compensate the victims of the dynamiting, which they freely promised. And, in fact, 54 leading men of New Orleans, the president of every major business, the president of every trade association, the city council, the mayor, and so forth, they all signed a pledge that they would, in fact, compensate the victims fully. A couple years later when the claims came in, they'd paid off pennies on the dollar and there were roughly 10,000 who were flooded out of their homes. When the water went through, there was absolutely nothing left. And their homes were gone, their means of making a living disappeared, and they got an average of $80 a person, something like that.

INT: Briefly describe the communities that were wiped out.

JB: Louisiana, as you know, is a mélange of many cultures. And the people who lived down there were called Islanos. They were actually from Spain. When Spain ruled Louisiana briefly, they brought these people over to try to settle the area and create a Spanish population. They were very isolated. Many of them continued to speak Spanish, in fact, an 18th century version of Spanish that hadn't evolved. And they were mostly trappers. They would go out in the marsh and trap muskrats and sell muskrats. As primitive as that is as a way of making a living, they could make very good money. It was not at all unusual for them to make $7,500, even $10,000 a year. And to give you a sense of proportion, the starting salary for a prohibition agent was like $1,200 a year. And the salary of the governor of Louisiana was $7,500 a year. So they made very good money. And they also had a quite lucrative [trade] as bootleggers. It's one of the prime bootlegging or importing areas in the country.

INT: Describe the rescue operations.

JB: In this flood there were actually several hundred thousand people who were picked off rooftops or levees or from trees. And Hoover gathered together a fleet of over 800 boats and there were a few steamboats, major paddle wheelers that rolled down the river. In some cases they would actually roll on what had been land and they would act as a mother ship and there would be, a smaller boats that would go out usually in a given area that would go with a mail man, who knew the routes, knew where the houses were or at least had been, knew what certain signs were and they would go look for people. And they did an absolutely extraordinary job. I mean literally a hundred thousand people were picked off rooftops and trees. I mean it was an unbelievably well organized rescue operation. But the whole area was known, from the great crevasse at Mound's Landing in the State of Mississippi, I know, for more than 50 miles to the east to the hills, there was nothing but water. And for 75 miles south from that break there was nothing but water. That's an inland sea. On the other side of the river, the river went from Vicksburg to Monroe, Louisiana, and that's 70 miles. Again, all of it essentially under water, some of it under five feet of water, some of it under a good deal more water. In central Louisiana further south in the Chafalaya Basin, again, you know, hundreds of thousands of people. In total, there were roughly a million people living in the lower Mississippi region that was flooded by the river. Almost two-thirds of them were fed by the Red Cross. The rest basically left and went to stay with relatives outside the area. There were 330,000 people living in tents for months. And the population of the United States at the time was roughly 120 million people. So what you've got is nearly one percent of the entire population of the United States was flooded in 1927.

INT: How did Hoover deal with this?

JB: Well, Hoover was at his best in this. He was a brilliant organizational genius. He knew how to cut red tape. He knew how to get things done, and one of the things he did was decentralize so that there were would be no delays, but he also was extremely prepared, and well in advance he would get predictions of what levees might break, and well in advance of the levee break he would send orders to a local Red Cross committee and tell them to set up a camp, a refugee camp for eight thousand or 15,000, however many it was, and he'd send the plans along with it. And, you know, detailing everything from latrines to electricity. You know, he did not, of course, do this all by himself, but part of it was he had good people around him and he relied on 'em. I mean he was an organizational genius, without a doubt. And he had a lot of experience with this kind of logistics. At the beginning of World War I before the US ended the war, he fed occupied Belgium, and that was something that initially was opposed by both the British and the Germans -- didn't want him doing that.

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