The Swollen Giant

Throughout March the watershed states of the Mississippi River system received as much as three times their average rainfall. There were no spectacular storms--just day after day of precipitation, until the earth, already saturated by abnormally heavy winter rains and early spring thaws, could absorb no more. "We were one-inched to death," explained Allen Pearson, director of the National Severe Storm Forecast Center. The runoff gradually distended the Mississippi's major tributaries--in particular the Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin and lower Missouri--until they jumped their banks last week.

With that, the Mississippi itself became a sullen, swollen giant, toppling levees, inundating homes and farm lands and roaring through diversionary dikes. In St. Louis the river peaked at 39.8 ft.--its highest level since 1951.

Last week's flood ranked as one of the river's great disasters. It caused the death of 19 Mississippi Valley residents, destroyed an estimated $150 million worth of property and covered 7,000,000 acres--an area slightly larger than Maryland. President Nixon ordered the Coast Guard Reserve to help with rescue and evacuation--the first time it has been mobilized in peacetime. Everywhere, the battle was being waged with rowboats, shovels and sand. On Kaskaskia Island, smack in the middle of the Mississippi 75 miles south of St. Louis, college students teamed with inmates from nearby Illinois' Menard state prison to shore up levees and prevent the historic site--Illinois' first state capital --from being immersed. The bridge linking the island to St. Marys, Mo., lay six feet under water.

As the Mississippi's highest waters bore down on Memphis and points south, the levee system was holding up well, but the danger remained. "What concerns us," said a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers in Vicksburg, Miss., "is that this is a long, slow crest. The odds against being spared heavy April rains go up every day. We are hoping that we can get through the next couple of weeks without a big downpour." That hope seemed dashed early last weekend as rains began to pelt parts of the lower river valley and flash flood warnings went out for the entire state of Mississippi, but the rains mercifully let up, the warnings were canceled and riverbank residents returned to their normal activities--which include watching the river. As one Mississippian said, "Dat Ole Man sure ain't behavin' good--he's cutting up."

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