MissouriGreen

Saturday I drove on Highway 100 to Hermann, crossed the Missouri, and returned using 94. The weather was sunny and mild, which makes it hard to take a flood, seriously. Luckily for the people of Hermann, and all points east, several levees broke along the Missouri further north and west and the level of water didn't rise to be a threat. Not so luckily for towns such as Big Lake, which ended up under water.

If this had been 1927, I would have been suspicious of the levees breaking. Back then, people from one town would sneak over to the levees protecting homes and fields upriver along the Mississippi and would seek to blow them up in order to protect their own homes. It's a measure of how far along we've come as a people that no community would even consider such action today, even if it makes sense to do such–flooding a smaller community such as Big Lake to protect larger, such as Jefferson City or St. Charles.

At a boat launch along a tributary that flows into the Missouri, I chatted with a fisherman who had come up to check the water levels, and then decided to do a little fishing. Though boats were barred from the Missouri, they were safe along the smaller streams.

Hermann is a charming town with several interesting and old buildings, most in excellent condition. It wasn't a particularly friendly town, but I imagine the people were stressed from the worries of the flood all through out the week. By the types of shops and the number of hotels, it's a town that would welcome tourists. It also has a winery, and it looked like restoration of a beautiful riverfront hotel was underway.

The water came up to, and overlapped, the town's waterfront park and flowed into what was probably a small creek running through the town. The creek's banks were overflowed, but no homes were damaged or threatened.

Farm fields were inundated all throughout the region. The flooding isn't a problem to farm land, because it brings new top soil. However, this was yet another delay on the growing season and we've had so many already this year.

Along the way on 94, I did see homes that would probably receive some water damage. Most were old mobile homes, with heaps of rusted junk in the yard. One might say, what loss would there be with places such as these, but they were homes for someone–usually someone who can least afford the damage.

At one spot, where the water threatened to flood over 94, I had stopped by a flood warning sign to take pictures of the river. As I looked down the very short hill, I noticed snakes swimming past–dozens! They had all been drowned out by their 'homes' and were trying to find a place to climb up the hill. Even a mild flood has consequences to the native flora and fauna. Consequences both good and bad because such flooding is responsible for the rich soil that keeps the state green, and the animals fat and happy.

Back in Hermann, across from the waterfront park was a colorful bait shop that was cut off from the road leading to the park. I walked across the tracks and to the front of the building, but couldn't continue further–there was a locked gate across the path, prevent access to the tracks. The older gentleman who lived there yelled out to a couple of young folk to check his mailbox, because he couldn't get to it.

The fence had a sign that started with, "Smile you being watch" and all throughout the yard, painted American flags with "God bless USA".

I never noticed the levees, as much as I did with this drive. Before, they were part of the landscape–regular hills among the natural, irregular ones. However, when you're driving along next to a levee that's protecting the road from rapidly running, huge quantities of water, you notice every single one. What was stunning was realizing that the levees miles away from the roads were built because of the flood of 1993, and that most of the road I traveled on Saturday had been underwater a scant 14 years before.

The weather is lovely lately, so much so that I've attempted twice to go out and get photos of the wintering bald eagles in our area. Both times I've gone to locations some form of Eagle Days was happening, and either I arrived too late or I couldn't get in because I wasn't a school kid.

When I went to Chain of Rocks Bridge on Monday, the bridge was closed because of a school program. I decided to visit a park not far from the bridge to see if I could get down to the banks of the Mississippi and walk back to the bridge.

There was a boat launch to the water, and the river was low enough to expose 'beach' along the side. However, a beach in Mississippi terms is a relatively flat area of mud of differing thickness, scattered about with various forms of debris (not to mention garbage left by some of those who frequent the area in the nights). I didn't have my hiking boots but thought I would be able to manage with just my tennis shoes–bringing truth to that old saw that there's no fool quite like an old fool.

After slipping and sliding along for about 1/2 a mile, I could see the bridge, as well as the rapids, in addition to a rusted out old hulk I'd never noticed before. I passed two fishermen along the way, bundled up against the cold and this sudden incursion of tennis shoe clad tourists, one of whom was hauling an expensive camera to what is the absolute worst neighborhood in St. Louis. Whatever their thoughts, they were locked tight behind stony faces, and eyes fixed on lines in the water.

A family was exploring by the hulk, so I thought if they had no problems getting to the area, I would not either. I then proceeded to step on top of what I thought was firm sand, only to sink into the thickest, muckiest mud you ever did see–sinking up to my ankles and held fast.

I tried to lift one foot, then the other, but neither would budge. I stood there for a few minutes, contemplating my options ("Hello police? I'm stuck in the mud of the Mississippi and I can't get out…Hello Rob? I'm stuck in the mud of the Mississippi and I can't get out…")

While I was standing there, the family walked past me, up the hill among the scrub, which explains why I didn't see other footprints along the path I was taking. We called out to each other, chatting about the eagles, and how it was too bad the Bridge was closed. The mother said the kids liked walking along the beach. I said kids would. Too bad we didn't think to wear hiking boots. Yes, she replied, laughing. I thought of asking them for help pulling me out, but suddenly felt shy of exposing my predicament; feeling a little foolish.

I noticed a bird up above one of the trees and thought at first it was an eagle. I whipped my camera out and took a couple of hasty, blurry shots, but it was only a hawk. Only a hawk–normally getting even a bad photo of a hawk is a good day of shooting.

I also noticed that the mud was full of animal prints, and would have gotten some shots of them and my feet stuck in the mud, but all I had was my 400mm and both were too close. I could have changed lenses, but I thought all that fussing around would probably send my butt into the mud and if my feet were stuck so deep, my god, what would happen to my butt?

I couldn't see them, but I did wonder if the fishermen down the beach could see me, stuck in the mud. Or did they keep their eyes fixed on their fishing lines?

I think I stood there looking around for close to 20 minutes or so. During that time, I kept moving my feet side to side, trying to break the suction. Finally, with a decided *thwopt*, I could pull out first my left foot, then my right. Still with tennis shoes, though my feet were covered with the thick, persistent brown muck.

On my way home, I noticed people leaving by the Bridge and stopped by the gate to ask if it might be opening. I talked to the guy at the gate and he said as soon as the tents were folded up, they'd be leaving. He looked in and saw all my camera equipment and said whatever I did, to not leave it in the car. Even with guards, they'd had windows smashed in and items grabbed from cars. I mentioned that I leave my extra items in the trunk, and he said make sure I put them in before parking, because the thieves will wait in the bushes (and here he pointed at some bushes by the bridge) to see who puts something valuable in their trunks, and they'll pry them open as soon as I'm out of sight.

He then looked at me and my 400mm and said whatever I did, make sure others were on the bridge before I walked. While he was talking to me, other cars pulled up to check to see if the bridge was open. It's a popular place to walk in the neighborhood. There weren't many parks that close to the river.

Today, I went down again, this time later in the afternoon, hoping I would catch the eagles. When I pulled into the lot, a large, older black car was driving back and forth between the cars–windows tinted dark. It eventually moved off and I parked, in the center of the lot in a place with no other cars around and easy view from both the road and the bridge.

There weren't any eagles, but there were doves, seagulls, and heron so I enjoyed the walk and took a few photos. To be safe, I waited until a man walking with his dog and his two kids started heading back to the cars and followed them. When I got to the lot, I noticed, to the side, the large black car I'd seen earlier. It was sitting there, with its engine running, and lights on.

The man and his kids stopped at a SUV a distance from me, and I passed him (still holding that same damn 400mm lens) and hurried to my car. As I approached it, the black car started heading toward me. When I was about 6 feet away from my car, a small, bright yellow SUV pulled into the lot, and then slowed near my car. I signaled the doors unlocked, opened the passenger side, and threw my camera and gear into the car.

The black car turned away, sped up, and pulled out of the lot. The yellow SUV then continued on to park.

When I told my roommate what happened when I got home, he agreed with me that the people in the car were most likely going to try and grab my gear. Chances are the people in the yellow SUV guessed this, too, and stopped near me to keep them away. He also said, and I agreed, I won't be able to go back to the bridge by myself to go walking again. This hurts, physically hurts, because it's one of my favorite places to walk. And since I can't handle the hikes I normally go on at this time, my places to walk are becoming more limited.

Between one moment and the next, Missouri had stopped feeling like home.

Come down to the banks of Old Man River.

Come down to the banks, and step into the mean muds of the Mississippi.

Sink down until they hold you tight.

Stand there caught, can't move, and despair.

Because Old Muddy, he don't want to let none of you go.

No sir, he don't want let none of you go.

In 1927, the rain kept falling in the Mississippi delta. Folks would look at the sky anxiously, hoping for a break, but none came. Those who lived near the Mississippi, well they knew he was a cantankerous old bastard and could turn on they any old time. They'd watch the levees, those mounds of dirt and tough old swamp grass that was all that stood between them and the waters.

Most years, the levees held and the rich, wet lands yielded plentiful crops–usually cotton, though some land owners ran sugar cane. The folks that farmed the lands were black, but they didn't own the lands, no sir. No they were sharecroppers, which back in those days was only about a drop of blood away from slavery.

Then early that year, a wall of water came down south, riding the Sip like a drunk-happy gambling boat captain. It started in Illinois, where those in charge, the Mississippi River Commission pointed to their work, their levees and said without a doubt they'd hold. Then right before Easter, the levees gave up their fight and started to fail, one after another.

"On that night that the levee broke, when daddy went out and he could see the water coming across the fields. And our house was about, I guess about eighteen inches off the ground. And he come back in the house, he says, “"I see the water coming across the field. It done filled up a big slew coming between our house and the levee,” and it’s level out there. So he come back in the house and stayed about twenty minutes. About 10: 00 that night, we were moving a few bed things up in the loft part of the house, and there’s where we was until the next morning. And we stayed in there, up there, two nights and three days. Finally a seaplane come along, and my daddy had done cut a hole where we could look out on the outside, and he was waving a white rag when that seaplane come by. And then about two hours after then, it was a gas boat going up there and taking us all to the levee. And we lived up there on the levee until the water went down."

William Cobb On the Night when the Levee Broke

In Greenville, Mississippi over 13,000 blacks are stranded on the levee without food and water and little protection from the elements. When boats arrive to rescue those flooded out, only the whites are picked up, because the plantation owners in the area are worried that if the blacks are ferried out, they won't return to farm the land.

Will Percy decides that the only honorable and decent course of action is to evacuate the refugees to safer ground down river and arranges for barges to pick up and transport the refugees. Many people are reluctant to abandon Greenville, despite the fact that their homes have been submerged. The planters, in particular, oppose Will's plan, fearing that if the African American refugees leave, they will never return, and there will be no labor to work the crops. LeRoy (ed. note: Will Percy's father), placing his business interests above his family's tradition of aiding those less fortunate, betrays his son and secretly sides with the planters. Boats with room for all the refugees arrive, but only 33 white women and children are allowed to board. The African American refugees are left behind, trapped on the levee. Later, Will Percy will write that he was "astounded and horrified" by this turn of events.

To justify his relief committee's failure to evacuate the refugees, Will Percy convinces the Red Cross to make Greenville a distribution center, with the African Americans providing the labor. Red Cross relief provisions arrive in Greenville, but the best provisions go to the whites in town. Only African Americans wearing tags around their necks marked "laborer" receive rations. National Guard is called in to patrol the refugee camps in Greenville. Word filters out of the camps that guardsmen are robbing, assaulting, raping and even murdering African Americans held on the levee.

From: PBS A Fatal Flood

The flood waters covered over over 27,000 square miles across several states, Mississippi and Arkansas being hardest hit. Over 240 are known to have died, but record keeping was poor in those times.

“Back up to a house . . . there was seven people on it. I presume it was wife . . . man, his wife, and five children. And I was heading over to this house. This was on my first hauling, the next day after the levee broke. And on the way getting to the house—this house was just moving along [in the river], you know—and all of a sudden it must of hit a stump or something. And the house flew all to pieces. And I searched the boards and things around there for ten minutes, and you know I never saw a soulÌs hand come up, not a soul.”

Henry Caillouet Seven All Together Went Down

The flood lasted two months, and the folks in New Orleans had actually dynamited a levee before the city–an act that proved unnecessary because broken levees elsewhere along the Sip had spilled enough water so the river wasn't a threat to the city.

By the time it was over, 700,000 people had lost their homes, and a hundred thousand homes and businesses were destroyed. The costs of the flood topped 4 billion dollars by 1993 standard's–a comparison brought to mind because in 1993, another great flood hit, but this time further north in Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri. I remember talking to a man in an old lighthouse on the hill overlooking Hannibal, Missouri about the day when the waters began to rise. He was a simple man who liked to talk with people, becoming an unofficial greeter to those visiting the lighthouse.

"You see there", he pointed out at the far shore of the Mississippi. "The water came from that direction. It just kept rising and rising, and it came toward the town, like a great, slow moving wave."

He then pointed at the bridge that spanned the River.

"There was another bridge here during the flood. I watched as people tried to get across the bridge, to get to their families and homes before they were cut off from the waters." I remember him smiling, raising his red feedcap (of which he was very proud), to resettle back on his head. "I watched as they blowed it up to make way for the new bridge."

When the floods washed out the approaches to the bridge, people had to commute from one side to the other of the river either by plane, or driving 200 miles away. Hannibal was underwater for 147 days before the flood began to recede; some towns were under even longer. Even St. Louis had flood waters lapping at the heels of the Arch, and flowing down the normally dry Des Peres river into the city and into the neighborhoods only a block or two from where I live now.

The 1993 flood displaced 74,000 people, and destroyed 45,000 buildings and homes. It's cost was 7.5 billion.

Today, the most significant sign you see of the flood of 1927 is the number of blacks living in northern cities. After the flood, many left the delta area, either because they lost their homes, or because of their harsh treatment; most likely because of the harsh treatment. There is some irony in this mistreatment of blacks, and the fears on the part of the white landowners about losing their workers. I think if the blacks had been treated decently, many wouldn't have left, thereby hastening the final curtain call for the old southern plantation culture.

And when the blacks left, they took with them part of the southern culture, manifested in the blues that followed every where they went: Chicago, Seattle, New York, and points beyond. Some would even say that the 1927 flood was the birth of the blues, such as this When the Levees Break, recorded by Kansas Joe, recorded in 1929.

If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break
If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break
And the water gonna come in, have no place to stay

Well all last night I sat on the levee and moan
Well all last night I sat on the levee and moan
Thinkin' 'bout my baby and my happy home

If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break
If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break
And all these people have no place to stay

Now look here mama what am I to do
Now look here mama what am I to do
I ain't got nobody to tell my troubles to

I works on the levee mama both night and day
I works on the levee mama both night and day
I ain't got nobody, keep the water away

Oh cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do no good
Oh cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do no good
When the levee breaks, mama, you got to lose

I works on the levee, mama both night and day
I works on the levee, mama both night and day
I works so hard, to keep the water away

I had a woman, she wouldn't do for me
I had a woman, she wouldn't do for me
I'm goin' back to my used to be

I's a mean old levee, cause me to weep and moan
I's a mean old levee, cause me to weep and moan
Gonna leave my baby, and my happy home.

The flood was also responsible, in part, for some of the success of the Civil Rights movement later in the 1960's. Whites in the north, and even parts of the south, came face to face with the atrocities committed on blacks in the delta. And blacks found that they were no longer willing to be free in name only.

You also don't see any of the damage from the 1993 flood, though again you see signs of it everywhere. At the restored Hodgson Mill, there was a pencil scratch half way up the second floor of the mill that marked the highest level of the flood. Most of the towns at risk along the Sip have also installed high floodgates, painted or not dependent on the town. The government also bought out flood-prone farms and made many into parks and conservation land.

When floods happen, people move, but when the waters recede some return, while others move in. Life goes on, because flooding, no matter how tragic the losses, is a part of life. It is a part of the delta, a legacy and a price for living by the river.

Right now, the delta is being hit again, but this time it isn't Old Man River who is to blame. Lots of stories about this new flood, too; lots of cries of doom and destruction: Thousands are dead, exclaims the mayor, even while he has people on roofs listening in on radio;Katrina leaves a trail of death and destruction, says the papers, even while people desperately hope for a green cot in a dome in another city; The Mississippi coast is gone, says the governor, even as people pick through rubble and find a single shoe. The recovery will take years, says the President, even as the finger pointing and blaming has begun. Stories about looters and havoc and ruin and how nothing will be the same again.

The city is destroyed. Well, now, I take exception to that one. You can't destroy a city unless you kill off every last one of the people who live in and love the city. You would also have to remove every reference to it in history, and all of its culture, and every last bit of influence it has ever had in the past, present, and we presume, future.

But I do not intend to give up easily. Why? Because I am absolutely convinced that New Orleanians will not allow their city to become a ghost town. And I intend to be part of the renewal that springs from this determination.
…
The culture of New Orleans has long since factored disasters and general uncertainty into its economic and philosophical outlook. An early-19th-century cholera epidemic killed one out of five New Orleanians, the equivalent of 100,000 today. Even the gravediggers died, forcing people to pile bodies at the cemetery gates. The first owner of the Lombard Plantation was among those who succumbed. But his wife and family stayed on, and some of their descendants, both white and black, are still in New Orleans today, perhaps perched on their rooftop awaiting rescue or huddling gratefully with friends out in Lafayette or Breaux Bridge.

I expect they, too, will return, and that life in New Orleans will go on, with all its precariousness and sense of fragility and, yes, with all its relish for the moment. That relish, by the way, which arose from the constant awareness of precisely such disasters as we are experiencing today, accounts for much of what gives the people of that city their reckless abandon, their devil-may-care attitude, and their zest for life. Rebuilding after Katrina will be just the next in a long series of events in which that spirit has been manifested.

S. Frederick Starr in A Sad Day, too, for Architecture.

Here's a prediction: come March, 2006, with our help, the towns along the coast will rebuild. A home will replace rubble, and a church will open its doors again. With our care, the bodies will be buried, and those who have suffered loss will be comforted. With our force, we will overcome those who grab gun and seek to cause fear (and in the process find that the 'gangs' become 'groups' and the groups are fewer than our lurid speculations imply). With our support, the casinos and businesses along the coast of Mississippi will be in full swing, and folks will be back at work. And with our hard work and sacrifice, the Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans will be the best. Ever.

The city is destroyed. What foolish nonsense. You know, the people that wrote this, they really don't know the South, and the people who live by big water.

I went for what was a three mile hike yesterday and ended up going six miles, primarily because I followed an animal track rather than the trail meant for humans. In the Spring here in Missouri when the marsh grasses are fresh and tall, and haven't been beaten down by other hikers, you can mistake a natural path used by animals for one used by humans — until you reach that moment when you go, "Way a sec. This can't be right."

My moment yesterday was when I drew close to the river and realized that much of the trail was under water, and what was above was very wet clay. If you have not walked on wet clay before, you may think that walking on something like ice is difficult. However, ice just sits there, being hard and shiny and fairly dependable–you know if you step just right, your foot on the ice will go a certain way. Wet clay, on the other hand, is devious. It will seem to be hard and stable one moment, and just when you think you can walk at a normal pace, it liquifies beneath you in a brown goo that slides out from under your foot even if you're not moving. Worse, it sucks at your shoe so that each step is accompanied by faintly obscene and definitely undignified sounds.

th-OP th-OP th-OP

Thankfully I had my walking stick with me and was able to use it to hold myself relatively upright, as well as test for shallow pockets of muck, as compared to ones that will eat you alive. It didn't help that I wasn't wearing my hiking boots, but was, instead wearing my relatively new, though bought at a lovely discount, white tennis shoes.

At one point, the trail, what there was of it, split in two directions but neither was marked. I picked the wrong one, which is how I ended up walking through hip high green on a narrow trail that never did stablize. Being pigheaded, I was determined to follow it until I reached the regular trail, but the path ended up going into the river. Not, however, before coming face to face with a nicely sized beaver, who I can tell you, was more than a little miffed that I was tromping through his terroritory.

(Some would say that bears are the most ill tempered mammals, but no creature can get meaner than a beaver — just ask people whose dogs have been drowned by the critters.)

Beaver are hard to photograph and here I was, faced with a golden opportunity to get a nice picture. I reached — ever so gently — to get my camera from its case, but even with the care I took, the beaver took alarm at my actions and vanished into the tall grass; moments later I heard a splash as it headed into the river. All I was left with was the opportunity to capture his tracks. In all the lovely muck.

I returned to where the trail split and this time headed in the right direction. Along the way I passed fields full of wild flowers–amazing flowers– and birds and dragonflies and other colorful insects. I used my walking stick to wave in front of my face when going through dense greenery, to break any webs across the trail — it's not particularly pleasant to walk into a web on a trail and then end up with a harmless but intimidating spider crawling on your face. Even if you're not frightened of spiders, and let me assure you, I am, the experience is not edifying.

During all of this, I met no other hikers, which was unusual. The day was beautiful and the area usually has people about, even during the week. Finally, I met up with an older woman and asked her if I was heading in the right direction to make it back to the main trail. She assured me I was and warned me not to head in the western direction, because much of the area was flooded and impassable. I told her I had just come from that direction.

"Oh, but you don't look that…", and then she looked at my feet and lower legs, my hands, and my face, "…muddy."

When I got back to my car, I was exhausted, and dirty…but satisfied. It felt good.

It wasn't all work and no play this weekend. I also explored two new conservation areas: Weldon Springs and the new Columbia Bottom. I found both of these through the Missouri Conservation connection, which is probably the best online nature site I know of — check out the interactive maps.

The new Columbia Bottom conservation area is quite large, and borders the Missouri on one side, and the Mississippi on the other, and meets at the confluence of both rivers. The confluence isn't that impressive a sight: two big old muddy brown rivers meet, becoming one bigger old muddy river — Old Muddy itself, the 'sip.

However, too hot to hike at the Bottom so I went over to the Riverfront park area, and crawled among the weeds and the insects to grab some photos of herons.

I did manage to get out for a walk along the Chain of Rocks Bridge. One nice thing about a bridge spanning the 'sip, there's usually a breeze blowing. And when you're covered in sweat, even a warm breeze can cool you down.

It was close to sunset out at the bridge, and as usual for Missouri, the colors of the sunset here are a photographer's best friend. Check out this photo of the water intake castle — pretty colors, eh?

Weldon Springs was hot and very humid, walking among the trees just after heavy rains last week. My three mile hike was cut short at about 1 1/2, because the weather saps your energy. However, I was able to spend some time watching two butterflies as they worked in and around some flowers.

Whenever the butterflies tried to occupy the same bud, they'd flutter around each other a moment, in a rather pretty ballet of wings, and then they'd move on, one to the flower, the other to another flower. No intervention required on my part.