1932 Flood and the Great Depression: Insights

The day Governor John Bel Edwards closed the schools, it got real for Louisiana. By April of 2020, the onset of the pandemic was being felt across the southland. Nonessential employees stayed home from work, schools were closed, and the nation was on a steep learning curve. If we were to experience a 1930s era depression, a recovery plan would be needed to bring us back from economic ruin.  At that moment no one knew where the bottom to this calamity was. A post pandemic recovery framework was developed.

In the planning process I recalled the 1932 flood in Ouachita Parish and the fact it happened during an economic crisis. There were some parallels between the pandemic and the flood.

The 1932 flood visited upon Ouachita Parish five years after the infamous 1927 flood. There was media reporting in late December the river would make forty feet, by Christmas. The ole river watchers said the river would keep rising and it did. Special meetings were held in the City of West Monroe and the City of Monroe to prepare. With the river above flood stage, the deluge came in January and brought the flood.

Water surrounded First West and you needed a boat on South Grand Steet and the downtown. The flood occurred at a time when Northeast Louisiana was in the throes of the Great Depression. Relief groups were having a hard time meeting basic needs before the flood and it got harder.

City of Monroe Mayor Arnold Bernstein established a committee to coordinate flood relief efforts. The City of West Monroe, Ouachita Parish Police Jury, Red Cross, Salvation Army, Ouachita National Bank and other relief organizations participated.

The relief committee distinguished unemployment relief from flood relief. They focused on the economic problems existing before the flood began. The relief committee managed an economic crisis and an epic flood. There are valuable insights provided by this piece of local history.

Just as we were planning to manage an economic crisis and a health disaster. We know they were successful in 1932. We are still here.

Extra, extra read all about it.

“In April 1932, flood control for West Monroe was the subject of a round-table discussion of the West Monroe Kiwanis club at its weekly meeting. The club is ready to cooperate with engineers in any manner possible, such as making surveys and rights of way, for the purpose of providing West Monroe with protection against floods. Dr. T L. Hood is chairman of the club's flood control committee.” – The Monroe News-Star  

Source: Newspaper.com, Thomas Aiello, Louisiana Historical Association, The Monroe News-Star and local knowledge

Tom M.

The Town Talk
Alexandria, Louisiana
06 Jan 1932, Wed • Page 1

Researched by Tom Malmay