Thousands still cling to their homes where the upper floors are yet dry, but thousands more have need to be removed in boats and established in great camps on the higher ground. Other thousands are camped upon broken levees. This is the pitiable plight of a lost battle.
27,000 square miles were inundated….An estimated 330,000 were rescued from rooftops, trees, isolated patches of high ground, and levees. The Red Cross ran 154… tent cities. A total of 325,554 people, a majority of them African American, lived in these camps for as long as 4 months. An additional 300,000 people outside the camps were fed and clothed by the Red Cross. Most of these were white. Of the remaining 300,000 people most fled. A few cared for themselves surviving on their own food and on their own property.
The first quote above is from the U.S. Commerce Secretary and the second from a New York Times report. The commerce secretary was Herbert Hoover and the flood occurred in 1927.
