African American

The flood’s most dramatic moment occurred on April 29, when authorities—hoping to protect New Orleans—dynamited the levee 13 miles below the Crescent City at Caernarvon in order to flood the relatively less populated Acadian region of St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes. The black-and-white photograph of the blast, with earthworks catapulted skyward, looks like a scene from the Great War in Europe.