Sauvé's Crevasse floods New Orleans, May 1849
- When
- 1849–1850
- Where
- Sauvé's Crevasse; New Orleans
- Episodes
- 3
In May 1849, a Mississippi River levee failure at Sauvé's Crevasse caused severe flooding in New Orleans. The river reached its highest level in twenty-one years, inundating areas that remained dry during later disasters. This event remains the most disastrous flood in the city's history prior to Hurricane Katrina.
Episodes
- Levee Failure at Sauvé's Crevasse
A Mississippi River levee failure occurred in May 1849, flooding much of New Orleans. The river reached its highest level in twenty-one years, causing significant inundation.
- Flood Control Efforts
Workers Dunbar and Surgi stanch the flood after seventeen days of effort, concluding on June 20, 1849.
- Municipal Financial Response
In 1850, the Second Municipality levied a special tax to offset expenditures related to the crevasse and infrastructure repairs.
Background and detail
Impact. The flooding was of a disastrous scale, exceeding any previous event except Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Although Katrina flooded a larger total urban area, the 1849 flood reached significant parts of Uptown that remained dry in 2005. Water levels in certain places were higher in 1849 than during the Katrina flooding, despite much of the surrounding area being swampland at the time.
Aftermath. Efforts to stanch the flood concluded on June 20, 1849. In 1850, the Second Municipality levied a special tax of $400,000 to offset expenditures on streets, wharves, and crevasses. The municipal council subsequently erected a levee on Felicity Street. New Orleans has not experienced direct flooding from the Mississippi River since this event, though it came close in 1927.
People involved
- Pierre Sauvé · owner of the plantation at the crevasse site
- Dunbar · undertook stanching the flood
- Surgi · undertook stanching the flood
Sources
- Sauvé's Crevasse Wikipedia, revision of 2026-02-26
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.