SOUTHERN LIVING: LOUISIANA RISK REDUCTION

In the summer of 1927, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover gave an interview where he offered an accounting of the 1927 flood losses. He spoke of a nation receiving an education from the disaster and the need for flood control. The last sentence in his interview reads “Now is the time as never before to keep efficiently functioning the organization born of this disaster.” These words ring true in 2023.

Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi are managing multiple disasters and all the administrative requirements that go along with it. Processes to reduce risks, build capacity, improved workflows and gain efficiency are being put in place out of necessity. Can the remaining capacity of these states and the Stafford Act sustain these ongoing recoveries with additional impacts?

We must reduce our risk to all-hazards across the state.

Last year I met a young family that relocated to North Louisiana from the coast. The mom said they were tired. She said her kid came in from school one day and said, "it's so peaceful here."

In Northeast Louisiana we are fortunate to have people like Karen Cupit and Lisa Richardson working on the Region 3 Louisiana Watershed Initiative. The origin of this effort was the realization that a change in how we mitigate and manage flooding needed to be made.

We must maintain our institutional knowledge from adversity. A Herbert said, “Now is the time as never before to keep efficiently functioning the organization born of this disaster." - 1927 U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Flood Czar and future President Herbert Hoover

Sources: Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, Newspaper.com and local knowledge

Tom M.

CLIPPED FROM
Messenger-Inquirer
Owensboro, Kentucky
07 Aug 1927, Sun • Page 24
Researched by Tom Malmay

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