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Nature always finds a way.

This is a saying I have always found fascinating as it Makes me realize just how small human life and our evolution can seem in the grand scale of what this earths been through over time.

We are being told that today we face many global crisis's brought on by the unnatural practices of man which is adversely affecting the planets ability to cope. But is all this Unnatural? Surely everything that has happened on this earth so far can be classified as natural occurrences. We were born of this earth as we are told and we evolved (some say unluckily) into the dominant species. With domination comes development and through this mankind has in some ways altered the earth's appearance.

But on a planet estimated to be over 4 billion years old, this alteration becomes a minor event as the earth continually shifts and evolves its climate, its landscapes, its temperatures and its water management.

We may think we have managed to tame the planets natural resources but in many incidents this has been made to be proven wrong.

In 1927 the Mississippi river flooded nearly the entire length of its course displacing over 700 000 residents. This great river and its tributaries flooded more than 26000 square miles of land over seven states. Heavy rains had persisted since the autumn of 1926 and had by early spring soaked the soils of the surrounding land to a point where excess moisture could do nothing but run off. Unfortunately the snow falls from winter on the northern tiers of America began melting in the early spring of 1927 and that excess melt water drained directly into streams and tributaries feeding the Mississippi. The river at its peak was almost a mile wide at certain locations and almost 32 meters deep. At the time authorities thought that the use of levees would be sufficient to stop a disaster of this magnitude from happening. They were sadly mistaken and measures were taken shortly after for a multifaceted approach to water management. These measures included meander cutoffs, upstream reservoirs and flood outlets.

But yet again in 1993 these measures were not enough and this great river reared its powerful head. In this year 60% of the land affected by the 1927 disaster was hit again. 77% of the Levee's in place failed due to the sheer power the water bombarded these defenses with. Most of these failures occurred south of St Louis. In this incidence the flooding was caused by a crest in the water levels in the June to July summer period.

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