From This Angle, All of the Houses Look Like Caskets

“Far from unfounded, these theories drew on the legacy of the Mississippi Flood of 1927. Heavy rains in the fall of 1926 and spring of 1927 caused the Mississippi River to swell beyond what the man made levees that contained it could hold. The first levee broke on Saturday April 16, 1927, following what people refer to as the “Great Storm of Good Friday” the day before. The entire levee system along the lower Mississippi River collapsed over the next few weeks, primarily affecting Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana (Britannica, n.d.). As the river rose, Black men were forced to desperately attempt to shore up the levees with sandbags at gunpoint. Once the levees were breached, they were left stranded for days without food or drinking water. The floods killed 500 and displaced hundreds of thousands of people, most of whom were Black and had to live in relief camps afterward (Britannica, n.d.).

In Louisiana, officials intentionally dynamited a levee in the community of Caernarvon in the very poor St. Bernard Parish to protect New Orleans’ wealthy neighborhoods (Barry, 1997). Lower lying, poor white and Black communities were flooded as a result. The affected communities never received aid or compensation for this atrocity. This act set a precedent for the allegations that the levees were exploded during Hurricane Betsy and conspiracy theories about levee explosions during Hurricane Katrina were rooted in these histories. Sacrificing areas of concentrated poverty to save wealthier white areas amidst natural disasters was a pattern on behalf of the New Orleans city government, the Louisiana state government, and the U.S. federal government.”

Chapter 4 Climate Catastrophe and/as Conspiracy: Hurricane Katrina on Documentary Film