As waters of the Mississippi River continue to rise, residents here will see a different type of flood than they did generations ago.

The Great Flood of 1927 — the most destructive in American history — began with tremendous rains throughout the Mississippi River Valley. Heavy rains from December 1926 to April 1927 caused three separate flood waves throughout the lower Mississippi River Valley, each one getting larger.

In February, a levee break in Arkansas flooded more than 100,000 acres with 10 feet to 15 feet of water. In Mississippi, the worst came in April and May. The river crested on May 4 at Vicksburg with a level of 58.7 feet. An area of 10,000 square miles — about the size of Maryland — was inundated with water. “Pestilence and famine followed in its wake,” the Vicksburg Evening Post reported at the time, and an estimated 327,000 were left homeless, according to the Red Cross.

By the time the water receded in August 1927, more than 700,000 people were displaced and 26,000 square miles were inundated up to 30 feet, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said in a 2002 report on the 75th anniversary of the flood.

In 1928, Congress passed the Flood Control Act.

Until 1927, flood protection consisted of a levees-only approach. Most levees were built by local levee boards. More than 300 flood control plans were submitted, before what is now known as the Mississippi River and Tributaries Project was finalized, the Corps report said.

The project consisted of four elements — levees, floodways and control structures, channel improvements and tributary basin improvements — and is estimated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to have prevented $259 billion in flood damage.

Even as forecasts have this year’s flood reaching historic levels, it will be vastly different than floods of both 1927 and 1937, when water levels topped out at 53.2 feet.

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Although he was only 2 years old, Lucius Dabney has a vivid recollection of the Great Flood of 1927.

“I remember my grandfather had a big field filled with Jersey cows,” said Dabney, 87, a Vicksburg attorney. “He was an attorney, but loved Jersey cows. During the (1927) flood, that field was filled with automobiles, equipment and tractors and things like that.

“People in Louisiana sensed the flood was coming, so they brought their autos to Vicksburg. The bridge (over the Mississippi) hadn’t been built yet, so to get to Vicksburg they had to come across on a boat. The dock was at the foot of Clay Street.

“I particularly remember the ones that were sky blue, for some reason. I can see it like it was yesterday.”

The Great Flood of 1927 is regarded as the worst in American history.

“I think it was just people being unprepared,” Dabney said.

A decade after the Great Flood, the 1937 flood saw the river rise to 53.2 feet. Dabney remembers as a 12-year-old riding with his family to the river overlook and seeing, “a sheet of water to the west.”

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Val Davis, 86, recalled her father putting her on one of the last trains out of the Delta headed for Memphis in the Great Flood of 1927.

It was the 1932 flood, though, that she remembers most. That is how she and her family got to Vicksburg. The level at Vicksburg in 1932 was 49.5 feet.

“We were living in Anguilla and we knew it was going to flood,” Davis said. “I remember riding down to Vicksburg in a furniture truck. Mother had a small Ford automobile, but all the children couldn’t fit into it. So I rode in the furniture truck.

“All along the highway, there were sandbags. I can remember dipping my foot in the water. It’s also where I got my passion for Hershey bars. We stopped at a small store near Rolling Fork and they bought me a Hershey bar.”

Davis attended Main Street school (where Vicksburg Auditorium now stands) and Speed Street school before attending high school at Carr Central.

Her recollections of the 1937 flood are scant. “All we knew is that we had high water.”

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Marie Wheelock, 84, of Redwood, can find the spot where the cotton house sat that became the family home for several months during the 1937 flood.

Off of Mississippi 3 near where International Paper is now was a huge cotton field and the owner, whom she does not remember, allowed displaced residents to take shelter in cotton barns — a structure to store cotton.

“It seemed like we were there forever,” said Wheelock, who was born in 1927 and has lived in south Vicksburg since 1953. “There was no air and no bedding, so you had to sleep wherever you could. It was not comfortable.”

All along highways, people were living in tents “wherever they could find a spot,” Wheelock said.

She also remembers there being little if any food available. “It was very hard to get food. There were no vegetables or fruit to be had anywhere. Times were tough.”

She vividly recalled meals of “scrambled meal with gravy.” Her mother, she recalled, was a great planner and the family of eight never went hungry. “You ate what you could.”

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The floodwaters in 1937 got so bad in the Delta, residents fled to Vicksburg.

Joe Gerache, 85, a retired pharmacist, remembers he and his father driving to the Vicksburg National Military Park, where displaced people were living in tents.

“I remember the Red Cross and Salvation Army providing blankets and cots,” Gerache said. “The people stayed there until the water went down.”

Gerache’s father, also named Joe, ran People’s Drug Store. The two would deliver medicine to those living in the tent cities.

“The thing about the 1927 flood is that when the levees broke, the river was 75 miles wide — all the way to Monroe,” Gerache said. “That is amazing.”

Gerache, who grew up at Washington and Beresford streets, said in 1937 he could see the rising river waters from his front porch.

He remembers a “sheet of water” on Levee Street and an area at the foot of Egan Street called “the pocket.” Black residents would have “baptizings” there when water filled the pockets during floods, Gerache said.

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Mary Jane Lauderdale has one regret.

“I never learned how to swim,” said the lifelong Vicksburg resident, who grew up in a two-story home at Oak and Dabney streets. “I’m scared of water.”

Born in 1923, she said she has few recollections of the ’27 or ’37 floods, because, “we were just kids and didn’t think anything of it.”

Still, Lauderdale, 87, fears this year’s could be worse.

“There weren’t nearly as many people living in places like Eagle Lake as there are now,” she said. “So many more will be affected this time.”