The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Anatomy of a Flood

JIM LEHRER: Normally, people just scream in futile anger at the gods when the floods come; but in Jackson, Mississippi, which looked like this two weeks ago after being hit by the biggest flood in its history, fists are being shaken at human beings -- mainly the kind who work for the federal government

Good evening. Every spring there are floods; it`s the dark side of the season that also brings the May flowers and turns young men`s fancies. This spring they`ve come particularly to areas along the Red River in North Dakota and Minnesota, already causing hundreds of people to evacuate their homes; more may soon have to, according to today`s reports. Houston, down on the Texas Gulf coast, has also had heavy flooding. So have places in Louisiana, Alabama and Florida, mainly in Miami. But the worst has been in Mississippi-- in Jackson, the capital city, and in smaller cities and towns downriver. And some Mississippians are reacting with a challenge to the traditional belief that floods are strictly natural disasters. They think some of their problems were people-made.

Tonight, the anatomy of the Jackson flood and what, if anything, people had to do with it and with all other floods, past, present and future. Robert MacNeil is off tonight. Charlayne Hunter-Gault is in Jackson, in the studios of the Mississippi Center for Educational Television. Charlayne?

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Jim, the disaster that hit Jackson Easter weekend was what geologists call a 300-500 year flood. That means that statistically such an event shouldn`t happen more than once in that many years. The flood followed a downpour of unbelievable dimensions. The rains began on Wednesday, April 11th. In a thirty-six hour period almost twenty inches of rain fell at the headwaters of the Pearl River, north east of the Mississippi capital. In Jackson itself, six inches of rain fell in twelve hours, with four and a half inches pouring down in a single hour. After the first day of heavy rains the Pearl rose two and a half feet at Jackson. Flash floods were reported all over the city. By Friday the 13th the local news media were warning of serious flood danger posed by the swollen river. Comparisons were already being made with the last serious flood of 1961, and even the 1902 disaster when the Pearl crested at a record thirty-seven and a half feet. Local officials predicted that the Pearl would exceed that figure, but because of the fickleness of the weather they steered clear of predicting the final crest. The National Weather Service forecasted more heavy thundershowers for Friday, still coming. A front-page headline in simply proclaimed, "Heavy rains expected but predicted that the flood was the Jackson Daily News, however, to end by tonight.

Many Jackson residents left for the Easter weekend believing that the danger was past, that their property would be safe if propped up on cinder blocks. Easter Sunday, April 15th, the once-in-500-years flood hit Jackson. With the Pearl over forty-two feet and rising, swollen to thirty times its average flow, large parts of Jackson went under water. The onrushing waters swept over levees that had held for decades. Parts of Interstate 55 sank under the flood waters. Thousands of homes were submerged. 17,000 of Jackon`s quarter of a million residents were forced to flee. In some of the city`s finest neighborhoods, owners of $100,000 to $200,000 homes heaved furniture on rooftops as the waters lapped at the eaves. Large parts of the downtown business district were inundated.

The Pearl didn`t crest at Jackson until Tuesday afternoon, at more than forty-three feet, and even when the river began to fall new problems emerged. The city`s brand-new sewage treatment plant was forced out of commission; the water treatment plant was also hit. There was the danger of poisonous snakes, and the flood waters had dangerously weakened buildings, roads and bridges.

Those who had fled were urged to stay away from the stricken areas of the city. As the cleanup got under way, damage estimates began climbing. Latest figures approach one billion dollars. By Thursday the 19th, the waters had subsided, but recriminations were on the rise, led by Jackson Mayor Dale Danks.

DALE DANKS, Mayor of Jackson, Mississippi: City officials depended on predictions which were made by the U.S. Weather Service and the U.S. Corps of Engineers. The city responded to the projections made by these agencies and served as a relay to keep the people informed. It turned out, as you know, that these predictions from expert sources were woefully inaccurate. Unfortunately, the city itself has no means of verifying, predictions of this type. We could only estimate the extent of the affected area on the basis of figures which we received from the Corps of Engineers and the Weather Service.

No one is more disturbed about the inaccuracy of this information than I am as your mayor.

HUNTER-GAULT: There were other controversies, the most heated involving the Ross Barnett Dam and Reservoir north of the city. The 33,000-acre lake was created twenty years ago with money from five counties in the Jack son. Angry citizens accused reservoir officials of keeping the lake filled for the benefit of fishermen and lakeside developers instead of using the reservoir as a flood control device. A group of property owners filed a class action suit against the Pearl River Vally Water Supply District, the agency that runs the reservoir.

There was less than $42 million of federal flood insurance in force in Jackson. Now, uninsured homeowers and businessmen face the prospect of federal loans at seven and three eighths percent. That would translate into hundreds of dollars a month in additional mortgage payments for most homeowners. That has made people angry as well.

Summing up a prevailing attitude among Jackson residents, one businessman cited the reason for growing wariness about government announcements. The first two had to do with the changing predictions of the time and the height of the river`s crest. The third was the statement, "I`m from the federal government and I`m here to help you."

As you saw earlier, one of the first complaints about the role of government agencies came from Jackson Mayor Dale Danks. David Waite, the mayor`s press secretary, was in charge of the flow of information from the emergency operations center during the flood. Mr. Waite, is it the city`s position that the natural disaster was made worse by the actions of. men -- in this case government officials?

DAVID WAITE: That`s really not known. The mayor was concerned as the relay for all of the information and finding out from our early releases; for example, on Friday noon when the emergency was declared, we had a report from the Weather Bureau, said it would reach thirty-seven feet late tonight -- that means Friday, near thirty-seven five tomorrow and thirty-eight feet is not out of the question by Sunday. And yet by seven o`clock that night we had thirty-nine feet Friday night in the city. So the mayor was concerned -- he doesn`t know whether the information could have been different or not, but he would like to see a review, not an investigation, of all these elements to determine if there was a better way to get the information out.

HUNTER-GAULT: Well, do you have any idea at this point what the Weather Service, in light of what you just said, could have done that would have made things better for you as a city?

WAITE: That is why the mayor`s calling for a review. We met with Cliff Green of the Weather Bureau at ten o`clock that morning, with the department heads, and that first initial release upon which this was based was sent out. And that was believed to be the information that was accurate. And Mayor Danks, concerned with -- like Mr. Denny here -- the people of the city, we wanted to get accurate information out and get people out if necessary. And we got all the information out as rapidly as we got it, but whether it could have been different or not, the mayor would like to have a review to find out if there was a way to get a better determination.

HUNTER-GAULT: Now, when did you know the magnitude of the disaster?

WAITE: We were getting a feel for it beginning Friday night, obviously that it was going over what had been the flood of record, and my releases throughout the afternoon indicate more and more concern until such time at seven o`clock that night the mayor came aboard with a live television report in which the first time we had information directly involving streets -- and we had a list of about thirty streets mostly in the northeast part of the city -- that had been inundated.

HUNTER-GAULT: Right. Let me ask you that. If you had known that information much earlier that this sort of thing was developing, say, earlier than Friday night, what would you have done differently?

WAITE: Our releases would then have been our information out to the media, which, I may add, were outstanding in their service to us -- all radio, TV, newspaper. We would have gotten the information out more rapidly to these areas warning them that there should be an evacuation. If we could have known earlier, these people could have saved some of the elements in their homes and gotten some of the furniture out. But the river rise was so rapid that many people just didn`t realize, as I`ve talked to many of them, that it was going to come up that fast.

HUNTER-GAULT: Now, in terms of discrepancies, were there discrepancies in information that you were getting from any other quarters that...?

WAITE: The basic information in the early hours and days were the Weather Bureau sources for river stages, which we were going by. There were elements, of course, for the Corps of Engineers, who were there, but their main function, as I understand, was to relay to the reservoir-dam area the inflow/outflow and the amount of water that should be released.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right. We`ll come back. Now let`s get a perspective on the flood from the government agency responsible for maintaining the levees and for giving advice to reservoir officials during the crisis, the Army Corps of Engineers. John Drago, Chief of Hydrology and Reservoir Control for the Corps, was in constant telephone contact with the reservoir operator from his base in Mobile, Alabama. Mr. Drago, it`s been suggested that part of the man-made problem is that the lake was not meant to be used for flood control and that it was too high when the floods came.

JOHN DRAGO: The lake was not intended for flood control; that part`s correct. Obviously it was not too high when the flood came, because we did cut the flood down quite a bit by using the lake. This was an unusual opportunity, because of the magnitude of this flood, to use that lake for what we used it for.

HUNTER-GAULT: So you feel that the reservoir had a positive effect on the flood situation.

DRAGO: There`s no doubt in my mind that the reservoir did have a very positive effect on it.

HUNTER-GAULT: What about the concern that`s also been raised that there was too much water being released from the reservoir? Now, you were the man making those decisions; what`s your response to that?

DRAGO: Well, we based our decision on the amount of water to release on how much water the levees could carry. In other words, our prime concern was to keep the water from going over the tops of the levees. And that was our basis for the amount of water to release. Also, the amount of water that we released never exceeded the inflow into the reservoir until long after the flood had passed. Of course, that`s obvious, because they stored three feet of water in the reservoir. In other words, we cut the peak off by an estimated twenty to thirty thousand, or even forty thousand cubic feet per second. In other words, instead of 160,000 flowing down there, which would have overtopped the levees, would have caused the stage on the gauge downstream to be two to three feet high -instead of that, we held the flow at an amount that would not seriously overtop the levees.

HUNTER-GAULT: But some did flow over.

DRAGO: There was some that did flow over.

HUNTER-GAULT: And did that make things worse?

DR-AGO: No. On the fairground side there was quite a bit of a problem with the levees, but I don`t believe it was from water going over the top of the levees, it was from water flanking the levees, as the picture showed, where Highway 55, Interstate 55, was. We believe that the water actually flanked the levees rather than going over the top of them.

HUNTER-GAULT: So you wouldn`t do anything differently with respect to the levees, in retrospect.

DRAGO: In retrospect, I think this was a magnificent flood control operation.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right, now, you were in Mobile and the problem was in Jackson. How did that in any way affect the timeliness of the decisions you were making, or the quality of the decisions?

DRAGO: I was in constant touch with Charlie Moak, who was the operator, and this means twenty-four hours a day, not just from eight to four. I believe the operation worked better because I was in Mobile and he was here.

HUNTER-GAULT: Why is that?

DRAGO: For one reason, he has people working for him. If I were here, I would have probably gotten in their way. In other words, if I told them what to do, whereas they`re used to Charlie telling them what to do, I believe it would have hindered the operation. I think that the coordination that Charlie Moak gave me and the way we worked together was fostered because I was in Mobile and he was here.I think it worked better with things that way.

HUNTER-GAULT: Did you have any problems getting through to Jackson at any point? You said you were in constant touch.

DRAGO: Yes. Yes; I hate to criticize Ma Bell, but we did have some problems getting through, such things as the operators would ring twice and then would tell us that there was an emergency going on, that they were having a real emergency in Jackson and they couldn`t...

HUNTER-GAULT: And you were trying to deal with it and couldn`t get through.

DRAGO: And I would tell them, "I know there`s an emergency, that`s the reason I want to get through."

HUNTER-GAULT: Right.

DRAGO: I could give you one instant case if you like.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right; well, we`ll come back if we have time in a moment. One of the 4,000 homes that was damaged in northeast Jackson belonged to William Denny. Since the flood Mr. Denny, a local business man, has been active in organizing a group of victims like himself, called the Easter Weekend Flood Victims. Mr. Denny, how severe are your losses?

WILLIAM DENNY: My losses, Charlayne, will be total, as those of many of my neighbors. I wanted to use, originally, a hypothetical example, but I could make it more than hypothetical.

HUNTER-GAULT: Let`s make it real.

DENNY: All right, it`ll be real. It`s real enough. On Thursday before the flood I had an $85,000 home. I had a $15,000 mortgage with a five and three-quarter interest rate. Now, if I had sold my home on Thursday I would have walked away with a $70,000 equity. Now after the flood I have a total loss of my home and all of my furnishings. Then when the Federal Disaster Relief Aid program started on -- I think nine o`clock on the 19th of April, we found that to be our second disaster of the week. We were shocked to find that through the Federal Disaster Relief program they were offering SBA loans at seven and three-eighths interest. Now, just to give you an example of how it would affect me personally -- and this can be multiplied by many, many of my neighbors, in some cases a lot more severe than this; I happen to be fortunate that I`m in a five and three-quarter interest rate to begin with on my first lien. :4any neighbors out there that are in a nine, ten percent rate now. But as an example, I have a $240 a month house payment right now. My loss is total to the amount of the loan iven or that is offered by SBA of $55,000. So I have to have all of that 55,000, possibly another $10,000 to recover my furnishings and my real property.

HUNTER-GAULT: Is this part of the reason that you felt it necessary to organize the flood victims?

DENNY: Oh, definitely. This was the reason, and this was the inception of that very meeting; it took place on the grounds at the aid station, as a matter of fact, by two other interested parties and neighbors of mine.

HUNTER-GAULT: That is, to press for measures to give you some better relief than you`re getting.

DENNY: Give us relief. We were looking for relief and aid, not loans; for heaven`s sakes, under these circumstances the last thing we need is a loan. We`re already in serious enough trouble. If I might just give you a quick computation, I have a $240 a month house payment. If I borrow the maximum based on my income, my maturity in all probability will only allow me to borrow up to twenty years for the $55,000. We estimate that payment would run about $460 a month. Now my $240 a month house payment is $700 a month, and I`m still $10,000 short of recovery.

HUNTER-GAULT: I see. Let me just ask you this, quickly: do you think that some of the problems and hardships could have been avoided?

DENNY: Yes, I certainly do, from the things that I`ve read -- and certainly I`m not an engineer and I`m not an expert in these matters and I`m not qualified to speak of measurements of water and so forth, with one exception: I know what eight feet of water is, because I stood in it, and my house has been in it.

HUNTER-GAULT: But your point is that it could have been avoided...

DENNY: I think it could have been avoided if the level was below the 295s recommended for that time in the operation level manual of the reservoir to begin with.I think it was quoted as being at 297.5, I believe, at the time of the flood.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right; thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: Sitting here in Washington with me, listening to this discussion in Jackson has been one of the federal officials most involved in implementing government policy on flood control. She`s Gloria Jimenez, administrator of the federal government`s flood insurance program. Her office underwrites federal insurance for those in designated flood-prone areas. The program and the process also seeks to prevent construction in floodplains, and in some extreme cases to move out structures already there.

First on Jackson specifically. The flooded area down there was designated by you as a flood-prone area, is that correct?

GLORIA JIMENEZ: That`s right.

LEHRER: Now, how many of those 4,000 houses flooded were actually covered by federally backed insurance?

JIMENEZ: Well, we had 1,600 policies in Jackson, and so far we`ve gotten 1,200 claims. I don`t know what happened to those other 400 people, but we have gotten 1,200 claims thus far. Unfortunately, other folks didn`t have the coverage, and Mr. Denny didn`t have the coverage, unfortunately. And the only thing I can suggest is that it may be that he bought his house before the community entered into the national flood insurance program and the requirement to have flood insurance was imposed on the mortgagees.

LEHRER: Let`s make sure we understand that. Under the program, anybody who lives in the flood plain, if the house was built after a certain date, must have flood insurance, is that right?

JIMENEZ: That`s right.

LEHRER: All right, now, based on your administration`s surveys or whatever you have done in Jackson, are there homes in this area that was flooded that shouldn`t have been there in the first place?

JIMENEZ: Well, apparently there are. These people have water to the rafters; and I haven`t been to Jackson myself but I have gotten reports, and anyone would look at the situation and say that these houses probably should never have been built here, that the river is periodically going to reclaim its floodplains and you really probably shouldn`t build there.

LEHRER: All right. What does that say, though, to people like Mr. Denny and others who are already there? Also another, long-term part of your program is to actually get these houses out of these floodplains.

Now, how do you go about doing that under your program?

JIMENEZ: We don`t right now have funds to do that, although we do have authorization under our statute. But there are plenty of other federal programs that provide funds for land purchase, and what we hope to do is to coordinate these various programs and try to layout a program of availability to show the community what can be done if that`s the choice they make. Because we can`t require a community to do anything; this is a community matter, completely under their control. But we could show them that, for instance, they can use the block grants from HUD, they can use the funds from the Department of Interior, SBA funds -- there are a variety of things that could be put together perhaps to help these people if that`s what their choice was, to move out of the floodplain.

LEHRER: In general terms, as I understand it, the federal policy now, the way to combat floods, is not to build more levees and reservoirs necessarily, but to do just exactly what you`re suggesting, is to get those houses that are in flood-prone areas out of there, is that correct?

JIMENEZ: Well, the President recently sent forward to the Congress a plan for a Federal Emergency Management Agency, and an important element of that new agency was hazard mitigation. I think that the President feels that we are living on a collision course with nature, that we have to plan properly. But we can`t afford to continue to expose ourselves and our people to hazards and then try to rescue them afterwards; it doesn`t make sense, we lose lives, and we lose property and it costs the taxpayers a lot of money. So that we really need to start taking a look at the hazards that we have and try to plan properly so that we aren`t wasting lives and money.

LEHRER: Let`s go back to Jackson. First, Mr. Denny, you did not have federal flood insurance, obviously, right, sir?

DENNY: No, I did not, and as a matter of fact, Mrs. Jimenez, I`m really surprised; I`m learning here a lot tonight. I`d never heard the terms before used as floodplains; I don`t know what that means. My home was built approximately sixteen years ago, I`ve been in that house sixteen years, Ms. Jimenez, and I`m having trouble in the summertime pumping enough water in there to freshen my yard. We`ve never had water above the curb in my front yard, nor any of those homes, some four or five hundred affected in that area, that I know of. I wasn`t even aware that we were in a floodplain until this weekend disaster.

LEHRER: Ms. Jimenez?

JIMENEZ: Well, Mr. Denny, I don`t know exactly where you live, but if you are in what we have designated as the hundred-year floodplain-- I have heard many, many people say to me, "Well, we`ve never had water here, and my grandmother and my great-grandmother lived here, and they`ve never had flooding. Yet we know that these areas are subject to flooding, and historically your community has suffered some very serious flooding. 1902 is the one we point to as being the worst; in 1961 you had some.

LEHRER: Mr. Waite, as a representative of the mayor`s office, can you shed any light on that? Does Mr. Denny live in the floodplain?

WAITE: I don`t know the exact address, but the hundred-year floodplain...no, I cannot -- what is the street?

DENNY: Romany Drive, right outside Rollingwood -- the Rollingwood community.

WAITE: No specific comment; I don`t know specifically. I do know that the Flood Insurance Administration has provided floodplain maps on the hundred- year flood and the regulatory floodway.

LEHRER: Has the City of Jackson, as a matter of policy, made sure that homeowners such as Mr. Denny and others are aware of the fact that they live in the floodplain, if in fact they do?

WAITE: I can`t specifically answer that. I do know that the city for the past four and a half years has by council order had homes that are in the hundred-year floodplain must have the first floor at least above the hundred-year flood level. Now, the city planning board has that, there have been council meetings dealing with this particular area, but I do not know at this time whether specifically there have been general meetings dealing with the hundred-year floodplain throughout the city.

LEHRER: In a general way, does the City of Jackson, through its zoning laws or in any other way try to prevent new construction in this floodplain area?

WAITE: That is correct. We are saying that in the hundred-year floodplain down to the regulatory floodway, houses that wish to be built in t-.at area must have the first floor above the hundred-year flood level.

LEHRER: Excuse me -- but you don`t say you can`t build there.

WAITE: Not at this point.

JIMENEZ: This meets our requirements.

LEHRER: Is that right? In other words, you don`t require that people not build in this area.

JIMENEZ: No, that`s right. We permit a community, under our regulations, to allow it, but we ask the communities to take a look at their peculiar situation; they know it better than we do, and many communities have decided not to permit development in the hundred-year floodplain.

LEHRER: Mr. Waite, has the city looked at the question of why only -- what is it? -- 1,600 out of the 4,000 homes that were flooded did have federal insurance?

WAITE: No, I think that was a decision that was made by individuals, and I am at a loss to know why people in a river area wouldn`t have flood insurance. I know that at this point there is a rush for flood insurance, and of course during this emergency there will be a lot of it being sold.

LEHRER: You mean under the federal policy, Ms. Jimenez, homeowners are not required to have federal flood insurance, they just can if they live in a ...

JIMENEZ: For new construction they must have it, if they`re getting a mortgage. For existing construction there`s no requirement.

LEHRER: Well, let`s take Mr. Denny`s case. Mr. Denny, you say you bought that house sixteen years ago.

DENNY: Approximately sixteen years ago, Jim.

LEHRER: Okay, well, let`s take a hypothetical case. Let`s say that the City of Jackson did have a meeting, Mr. Denny went to it and he discovered he lived in the floodplain. Could he have in fact bought flood insurance?

JIMENEZ: Of course; of course. And in fact, I`m really kind of concerned that the agents aren`t telling their clients that they ought to have flood insurance. We`ve had a series of training programs for agents all over the country, and...

LEHRER: Agents meaning private insurance agents.

JIMENEZ: Insurance agents. Insurance agents should routinely advise a person -- they know where they live, and they ought to tell them, "Hey, you are in the floodplain, you ought to consider flood insurance."

LEHRER: Let me make sure that people understand what we`re talking about. The federal government doesn`t have insurance offices around, you buy it through a regular insurance company, but it`s insured and backed by the federal government.

JIMENEZ: That`s right.

LEHRER: Mr. Drago, in a few seconds, let me come back to you: do you agree with the federal government, federal policy now, that the way to resolve flood control is through controlling the floodplain rather than building more levees and reservoirs as the Corps of Engineers does?

DRAGO: I think this has got to be a combination of the two. I don`t think that we can do it a hundred percent with levees, and I don`t think the people are going to want to be moved out of the floodplain. There`s one thing in all this discussion that was not brought out. This was considerably greater than a hundred-year flood.

LEHRER: Right. And we have to leave it right there, Mr. Drago. I`m sorry, we are out of time. Gentlemen in Jackson, thank you very much. Good night, Charlayne.

HUNTER-GAULT: Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: Ms. Jimenez, thank you. We`ll see you tomorrow night. I`m Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.