American Experience S13E14: Fatal Flood
- Aired: 2001-04-16
- Time: 20:00:00
- Runtime: 60 minutes
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Overview
In the spring of 1927, after weeks of incessant rains, the Mississippi River went on a rampage from Cairo, Illinois, to New Orleans, inundating hundreds of towns, killing as many as a thousand people, and leaving a million homeless. In Greenville, Mississippi, efforts to contain the river pitted the majority black population against an aristocratic plantation family, the Percys, and the Percys against themselves. A dramatic story of greed, power, and race during one of America's greatest natural disasters.