Flood Paper

Fighting a Different Enemy: the 1945 Red River Flood and a Network of Destruction1

In April 1945, learned of the capture of Berlin and the death of Adolph Hitler, and the defeat of Germany seemed imminent but for many in the Ark-La-Tex confronted a different enemy that spring. Torrential rains soaked Arkansas and Texas, and the Red River and its tributaries rose up with a speed and fury matching that of any marching army. The people caught in the path of the flooding river battled an adversary that threatened destruction as real as any military campaign. Though the Red River had flooded on past occassins such as in 1937, the flood of March and April 1945 dwarfed most that came before it both in scale and damages. The 1945 flood remains notable not only because of the damage it caused but because it prompted the building of considerable flood control measures along the river.2

Named for its wide, muddy waters suffused with silt, the Red River is often regarded as a placid river. After rising in two forks in the Texas Panhandle, it flows eastward forming much of the border between Texas and Oklahoma. As it enters Arkansas, the river shifts and flows south-southwestward into Louisiana until finally converging with the Mississippi River at the state’s border. Early accounts of the Red mainly chronicled its exploration and the limited improvements to make the river more navigable and therefore more economically viable. The removal of log jams by Captain Henry Miller Shreve at the behest of the federal government in the 1800s allowed not only for reliable navigation of the river and the founding and subsequent emergence of such cities as Shreveport as shipping centers. Shreve's removal of the so-called Red River Raft also drained much of the Red River Valley, opening up thousands of acres of fertile farmland formally submerged beneath its lakes and tributaries. As the river drained, it also became less navigable resulting in the creation of the Red River Valley Improvement Association in 1927 "which “had as its objective flood control, reclamation, and navigation."” However, early improvements along the Red remained more dominated by aims of aiding navigation rather than by flood control. The Red River hardly semed threatening in the words of??? “"the story of the Red River read more like that of a docile workhorse”" than a spirited racehorse. As a result, little in the way of flood control measures beyond levees constructed by local levee boards and the building of Denison Dam completed in 1944 were undertaken along the Red prior to the mid-twentieth century. (Shreve Magazine.)3

Though the Red River had experienced some flooding in the past such as in 1937, the flood of March and April 1945 dwarfed many that came before it both in scale and in damages, and remains to this day a significant flood along the Red not only because of the damage it caused but because it prompted the building of considerable flood control measures along the river. The culprit responsible for the flood came in the form of record breaking rains in southern Arkansas and Northeaster Texas during the spring of 1945. In March, Texarkana observed a total rainfall of 15.33,” about 11.03” above normal. 5.36” of it came on the day of March 29. 11” of rain fell in the town of Whitecliffs, Arkansas on Sunday March 31 on the Little River, a tributary flowing south into the Red, and crests surged downriver over the course of the next two weeks.( 1) Conditions in De Queen, Arkansas were declared the worst in 30 years. The highest gauge in ten years was observed on the Little River.(18)4

On March 30, eight miles north of Mena, Ark, a 50 ft. section of the railway for the Kansas City Southern washed out by the rains collapsed sending two engines and twelve cars into Lewis Creek. Three men were killed and three others suffered severe burns.(3)5

Insert Picture entitled “How Flood Waters Hit Red River and Moved South”6

On April 2 and 3, the flood crests moved into Miller and Lafayette Counties in southwestern Arkansas where the Sulphur and Red Rivers converge. On the 3rd, a levee broke on the Lafayette County side of the Red River at the Lester Plantation eight miles south of Garland City. (picture?)(4) The unleashed Red spilled over its banks inundating nearly six thousand acres of farmland.(3) The rapid rise of the river took many people in the region by surprise preventing them from evacuating in time while others simply refused to leave their homes or livestock. Reports from Doddridge, Arkansas said that people had gone to bed on the 2nd with water at their doorsteps, woke to it over their floors, and that by noon it was “over the stoves.” Many found themselves forced to high ground to await rescue. One eye witness reported a man mounting his house on logs and attempting to pull it away with his tractor, but the flood waters rose as quickly as he could pull.(8) At least one family of four, the Browns, lost their lives on April 3rd in the flooding near Bradley, Arkansas. Reportedly fleeing the flood, their boat had swamped, and they could not escape the river. Although the body of Charlie Brown along with that of his wife and daughter Bernice were eventually recovered on the, the body of his son Bentley Bradley remained missing. Searchers also reported finding the body of a black man in the river just north of the Louisiana line but were unable to brave swift waters to recover it. Tentative guesses identified the body as belonging to Shorty Dunn of Canfield, Arkansas.(S 6) 7

Along with destruction of property, the flood also caused electrical and communication failure throughout the area and made any transportation beyond boats impossible as it covered roads and washed out railways.(3 &4) Drift against railway trestles in some places became so massive that it threatened to topple the entire structure. Men worked nonstop to keep them clear of debris. At the Missouri-Pacific Trestle in Fulton, a major drift was hoisted up and over only to drift downriver and snag on a highway bridge. It was hoisted up and over again, drifted farther downriver, and then caught against the side of the Cotton Belt Trestle at Garland City, weakening it and bending it out of line.(6)8

Over five hundred people had to be evacuated from the flooded area around Doddridge. (5) Coast Guards boats operating out of Lewisville, Arkansas evacuated some one thousand people out of the lowlands. The Red Cross established a headquarters in the town to house and feed two hundred people displaced by the levee break near Garland City and set up immunization clinics in Miller and Bowie Counties.(4) Frances Blackburn, assistant to director of disaster relief in the Midwestern area for the American Red Cross set up a major headquarters in Texarkana designed to serve all of flood-stricken southwest Arkansas and northeast Texas.(5)9

On April 1 in Talco, Texas near the city of Paris the waters of White Oak Creek flooded over 524 acres leaving 23 people stranded in midstream. Five of the stranded had themselves been trapped when their boats capsized midstream while trying to rescue their neighbors. Three pneumatic assault boats were dispatched from Camp Maxey, an Army National Guard training facility north of Paris and 21 soldiers led by Lt. Col. James Gilchrist along with a local guide and Camp Maxey fire chief Morris “Mutt” Cross braved the waters in a successful rescue attempt though the waters threatened to capsize their boats. Some of those saved from the creek had been clinging for seven hours in the treacherous water. The soldiers brought them to the old Talco to Mt. Pleasant highway where “ambulance parties had to virtually fight their way through crowds of the curious in order to hasten the victims to Paris for treatment.” A line of 300 cars stretched nearly a mile down the highway and rescuers had to force their way through a crowd of 1000 onlookers milling about the water, but 23 people were successfully rescued.(9)10

On April 2, the Cypress River at Jefferson, Tx rose 10 feet in 12 hours inundating almost all of the town including much of the financial district.(10) Jefferson Sheriff Joe Riggs estimated that 70% of the residential district of the city was affected.(11) All but one road out of the city became submerged and The Shreveport Journal reported that more than half of the city’s three thousand residents might be forced from their homes.(10) Four boys had to be rescued from a midstream treetop by local residents R. C. Conn and H. D. McDonald,(10) and the Red Cross aided 250 families in evacuation in Marion County.(11) Private residents and a mass shelter at the courthouse housed the displaced families and a feeding center was established at the Moseley Hotel.(11) 11

Though residents erected barriers, in some places forced to use sacks of flour as sandbags,(12), they could not prevent 15 homes, 6 tourist cabins, and a grocery store from being washed away and almost the entire city from being flooded.(11) 126 cattle drowned in the lowlands (9) and chickens, dead stock, and debris floated down the streets. The Red Cross announced plans to begin handing out typhoid shots.(11) College students in for Easter became stranded at home and boats remained the only means of available transport in the city for several days.(11)12

Mayor R. H. Wood announced that despite the damage the town had enough food and milk for the time being and that clean water was being distributed by tank trucks.(12) A bank, 3 grocery stores, and 3 clothing stores remained open during the flood, and miraculously, telephone service remained available as well.(11) The main telephone office maintained service by raising their switchboards off the floor and bringing in pumps to remove the water.(11)13

On April 6, The Shreveport Times finally proclaimed the “Texarkana Area Flood Moving Out” It reported that the Red Cross headquarters had begun registration of refugees for rehabilitation work and that throughout eastern Arkansas a total of 445,000 acres had been inundated and 1,500 families affected by the flood.(6) However, even as relief spread across Arkansas and Texas, it did not take long for concern to arrive in Shreveport and Northern Louisiana.14

A Red Cross alert went out in the Agurs industrial area north of Shreveport to standby for potential evacuations as crests made their way downriver, and dozens of families, many of them African American, immediately headed toward the city. The Shreveport Journal reported that “a number of negro families from Agurs wondered towards Shreveport with clothing and bedding in their arms” and that “many of them apparently had misunderstood, had been misinformed, or were just plain scared, inasmuch as the official word was only to stand by for possible evacuation.”(12) 15

The city governments of Bossier and Shreveport along with businesses in the area began preparations for potential flooding. Plants began moving their equipment out of the area.(12) 50 trucks were left on standby at Barksdale Field for possible transport emergencies, and 10 trucks were dispatched to collect boats.(13) Concerns in Caddo and Bossier Parish lay not so much with the Red River itself, but rather in backwaters from the crest of the flood pushed up bayous, creeks, and drainage canals that emptied into the Red.(20) Particular concern lay with 12-Mile Bayou and Cross Bayou north of Shreveport. Cross Bayou flowed through the Agurs industrial area and sent considerable amounts of backwater up through storm sewers threatening flooding, but three pumps obtained from the Office of Civilian Defense pumped water out at a rate of 60,000 gallons a minute and kept the situation under control.(S 19) However, three families in Agurs did become marooned in their homes overnight behind the Bird Roofing Plant and had to be rescued by the Red Cross.(20) On the 8th, The Shreveport Times reported that 15 black families had been driven from their homes by Cross Bayou backwater yet “there was a feeling of confidence that flood fighters have the situation under control in this area so far as major troubles along Caddo parish levees are concerned.”(S20)16

Shelters erected at the state fair grounds cared for refugees evacuated from Agurs, along Caddo Lake, and other flooded areas in Bossier and Caddo Parishes. The Red Cross provided food while the Eighth Service Command provided 100 tents as temporary shelter. At Caddo Lake, refuges were taken to Oil City and Mooringsport. Barksdale Field furnished unlimited trucks bearing eight man crews to assist in transport of supplies and evacuation. Several stock tanks and engine houses in an oil field belonging to the Gulf Refining Company on the edge of the lake were carried away by flood waters while twenty feet of water stood in the warehouse though all valuable equipment had been removed from the sight.(s19) On the 8th, the The Shreveport Times stated a “Report of the local Red Cross chapter to area headquarters at Alexandria late yesterday listed 300 homes damaged by Red River here and several thousand acres of land under flood water.”(S20) Paul M. Griffis of the Caddo Parish Red Cross reported that chief requests were not for food or water but rather for lumber especially to repair damaged floors.(19)17

Despite concerns over backwater, the Red River did pose problems especially for businesses and houses directly on its shores. Some houses near the Shreveport old river front, mostly those of rivermen and African American families, became submerged along with the Meriwether Supply Company’s sand plant. Waters also threatened the Brewster war plant, but a secondary levee was thrown up and work continued on despite the encroaching danger. As one worker said, “there’s a blood-flood going on in Germany and the Pacific too.” (14) 18

Meanwhile, south of Shreveport at Dixie Bend, a valiant battle to hold the levee there raged over several days. About 400 black men from plantations in the southern part of the parish were brought in to supplement crews already working there.(S20) On the 6th, The Shreveport Times reported that some of the black men on the crew had been on duty for as long as 72 hours sandbagging and repairing breaks. Inmates from the parish prison farm had also helped to fight back the waters. (13) Eventually the danger faded as the Red River carved a new path for itself away from the weakened levee.(S20) Once the situation was finally contained, the Dixie Bend workers were finally sent home, but a skeleton crew remained to monitor the situation. (14) However, a break did occur in a private levee built and maintained by Judge Jim Grimmet at the Forks on 12-Mile Bayou north of Shreveport, flooding a large part of the Sunset subdivision and forcing 10 families to evacuate their homes. (21) 19

Perhaps one of the larger scares for Shreveport came in the form of a 150 foot chunk bitten out of the bank at Dixie Gardens on the Caddo Parish side of the River only eight miles from downtown.(15) However, the river eventually shifted 700 yards and began crossing a sand bar on the Bossier Parish side, relieving pressure of the beleaguered Caddo side banks. V. V. Whittington, chairman of the Bossier Parish levee board warned that the new channel in all likelihood would not be permanent, but it did prevent a serious inflow of water into Caddo Parish.(S21)20

Despite some damages, the situation in Shreveport and Bossier City remained mostly contained. On April 2nd, Whittington advised citizens not to become alarmed as “water is indeed rising, but not to the extent of much damage” (20) and compared to damages in many other parts of Arkansas and Louisiana, his words would prove true.21

While Shreveport and Bossier City proper fared reasonably well against the flood, the same could not be said for areas farther north including northern Caddo Parish itself. On April 5th, a double break on a levee on Soda Lake north of Shreveport and about 5 miles west of the town of Belcher flooded several thousand acres of farmland.(15) Claudius M. Dickson, chairman of the Caddo Parish levee board, reported that 400-500 families had been driven from their home due to the Soda Lake levee breaks.(S 19) Most of the families were African American and were cared for in the immediate vicinity.(15)22

Flood waters from the Soda Lake breaks climbed several feet around the sandbagged transmitting building of The Times radio station KWKH about 16 miles north of Shreveport reaching within two feet of a small emergency levee erected around the building. The building stood nearly a half mile from any dry land and could only be reached by boat. John D. Ewing, editor and publisher of The Times warned that there was “grave danger” that the station might soon go off the air.(s19)23

Beleaguered farmers in the Dixie-Belcher area flooded by the Soda Lake levee breaks requested that the Caddo Parish Levee Board blast the Cash Point floodgate in the Soda Canal and allow the floodwaters to drain. Board members held a special meeting on April 7th, but unanimously rejected. Board chairman Dickson stated that “we want to get the water off the farm lands as quickly as possible so the farmers and planters can get out their cotton, but if we tampered with the floodgates, it would almost certainly cause serious damage to Agurs war plants and homes.” He maintained he was “bitterly opposed to any measure the board is asked to take which would demand tampering with the levee system for the benefit of one group and at the expense of another.” He also stated he did not wish to raise the hopes of the citizens of Agurs unduly as the floodgate would likely open naturally on its own with a mater of a few days.(s19) Canal gates on Soda Lake did open naturally on the 10th providing some relief, but with no more than a two foot rise predicted downriver, which did not compose a serious threat to Agurs.(22)24

Even as the Soda Lake flooding began to come under some control, new threats arose at Vanceville where levees were reported to be holding back all the water they could stand. The water had reached within six inches of the top of the levee by April 8th.(s19) The Red River began eating away at the levee only four miles north of Barksdale Field and all pilots were called back so they could evacuate their planes in the event flood water should threaten the base. Another levee lying between Vanceville and Barksdale made the need for such an evacuation unlikely, but “pilots were still called back to their post as a precautionary measure.”(s19)25

Areas south of Shreveport fared little better and on the 8th a Shreveport Times headline declared that “Peaceful Bayou Pierre Is Turned Into thing of Evil.”(s19) In the article, Times writer Jack Gates describes a trip made along with a photographer and two state guardsmen to the Evelyn area 25 miles east of Mansfield where waters from Bayou Pierre, Grand Bayou, and the Red River had “converged into one solid sheet of water” in order to bring food to 30 stranded African Americans on the Carl Durham plantation. He recounts coming across numerous stranded black families with their livestock “standing on small hills surrounded by muddy water from which there was no apparent escape.” He passes many flooded buildings with “forlorn chickens” covering their tin roofs. When asked why he refused to leave, one man responded, “I have lived here a mighty long time and no flood has made me leave.” The party reached the Durham plantation and after distributing pork, beans, sandwiches, and coffee to the hungry families stranded there, returned safely to their starting point.(s19)26

On April 5th, another levee break occurred near Westdale which was predicted to flood many acres of farmland in south Caddo Parish as well as in Red River and De Soto Parishes. Water from the break would join waters from other breaks at Harmon on Grand Bayou and at Armistead which had already flooded thousands of acres in that area.(s19) At Elm Grove in south Bossier Parish backwater from flooding farther south near Coushatta pushed up Loggy Bayou and Red Chute flooding some of the buildings in the town and cutting off many outlying plantation and tenant homes.(s19)27

Despite the damage to the Shreveport-Bossier area, engineers at Denison Dam in Texas predicted that hold-backs there had reduced the flood on the Red River by at least one or two feet. Only 10,000 ft. of flow would be maintained, just enough to meet power production demands, until floodwaters receded downriver.(21) Even if spared increased carnage by Denison Dam, the national and Louisiana state governments undertook immediate steps to provide aid and assistance to areas stricken by flooding.28

At a meeting held in Baton Rouge on April 5th called by Governor Davis to “obtain a flood picture specific enough to coordinate both protective work and relief,” State Adjutant Gen. Raymond Fleming predicted a minimum of 25,000-50,000 refugees in Louisiana due to the flooding. It was agreed the worst flooding in the state was in the Colfax and Natchitoches areas and the high waters were likely to last another 4-5 weeks.(22)29

On April 4th, Senator Thomas Overton Brooks sent a telegram to Brig. Gen. Max Tyler, engineer in charge of the lower Mississippi valley district engineer’s office in Vicksburg and to Maj. Gen. Eugene Donovan, eighth service commander in Dallas, asking that they provide whatever aid they could to flooded areas of Louisiana. He asked Donovan to proved equipment and the personnel necessary to distribute and operate the equipment while he called upon Tyler to “have his engineers make a survey of the entire situation and to render any assistance and advice that might be helpful.” Congressman Brooks expressed plans to fly over the area to assess the damage himself.(s20)30

On that same day, the state liquidation board in Baton Rouge appropriated 100,000 dollars after a warning by Director Dewitt Pyburn that many times that amount would be needed in the event of emergencies. He estimated that the flooding would cost the state 750,000 to 1,000,000 dollars. The money would mostly go to local levee boards as he reported “we now have from 6 to 27 feet of water against 1,836 miles of main levee and expect conditions to get worse until at least April 15.”(19)31

On April 5th, Senator John Overton called for Congress to grant aid to areas stricken by flooding.(21) The bill would apply to areas affected by the Red and its tributaries, the Sabine, the Arkansas, the White, the Missouri, the Trinity, the Neches, and the Ohio and its tributaries.(21) His bill passed the Senate unanimously on May 10th. It authorized the appropriation of 12 million dollars for repairs in Louisiana for flooding in 1944 and 1945. It authorized a further 10 million dollars in loans to be granted to farmers whose property had been damaged. It also allowed for the procurement of agricultural machinery and equipment for use in damaged areas.(19) 32

*Insert information about flooding in Colfax, Natchitoches, East Point, and Alexandria-around 5-7 pages probably*33

As the last of the flood waters receded, a host of measures designed to prevent future flooding were enacted on a local and national level. In The Red River in Southwestern History Carl Newtom Tyson writes that “the Flood Control Act of 1946 was the beginning of serious efforts by the federal government to chain the forces of nature in the Red River valley, to prevent the destruction of property by the whims of the river, and to harness its seemingly limitless power.”(181) Another more extensive flood control act followed in 1950 greatly increasing the work of the Corps of Engineers. Tyson writes that “more than 150 large projects had been proposed, were in progress, or had been completed by 1957.”(181)34

The Flood Control Act of 1947 and subsequent additions provided “for the construction of Boswell, Hugo, Pine Creek, Lukfata, and Broken Bow reservoirs in Oklahoma; Millwood, DeQueen, Gillham, and Dierks reservoirs in Arkansas; and Cooper Lake, Wright Patman Lake, and Lake o’the Pines in Texas. The project also includes enlarging and strengthening the Red River levee system, constructing channel stabilization and bank protective works where levee setbacks are impossible or uneconomical, constructing several local protection projects, and incorporating several previously authorized projects into the comprehensive plan.”(u81)35

Specific projects include a standard board revetment to prevent bank caving erected above the Armistead-Coushatta highway bridge over the Red River in 1951 with extensions upstream in 1952 and 1954, which protects about 4,800 linear feet of bank.(U78) Another 1,136 ft. revetment installed near the Armistead-Coushatta bridge protects the north approach of the bank, and in 1968, a ring levee for the protection of the town of Coushatta was completed.(u78) Near Gahagan, three pile dikes were built to protect the flood control levee and to prevent relocation of a paved highway and a main-line railroad.(u80) Enlarging and clearing 21 miles of Bayou Pierre in and below Shreveport to the mouth of Cypress Bayou in 1950 was credited with lowering stages for the Red River flood of 1953 by 2.5 feet. Levee and bank improvements were also implemented in East Point, Colfax, near Natchitoches, and south of Fulton, Arkansas.36

Even in the shadow of World War II, extensive flooding of the Red River and its tributaries along with flooding of other rivers across the country succeeded in catching the attention of Congress. Though it may not have been front page news across the country, the floods could not be ignored, and many flood control and other improvement measures implemented along the rivers in the Ark-La-Tex may never have come to pass if not for the Red River flood of 1945. Despite the property damage and loss of life, it can perhaps be argued that good came of the flood as such preventive measures helped check similar losses in 1953, and have perhaps prevented many would-be floods altogether.37