Runoff Ramblings: Great Songs About Great Storms

by David Hirschman and Laurel Woodworth

Wasn't That A Mighty Storm

Up until modern times (e.g., Hurricane Katrina), one of most devastating storms in U.S. history hit Galveston, Texas on September 8, 1900. A hurricane coupled with extremely high tides killed approximately 6,000 residents and wiped out much of the city (reportedly, 3,000 homes were washed completely away). This storm, coming before the era of accurate storm forecasting, gave residents little time to move to higher ground (which seems to be in short supply in the coastal Galveston area). 

Such a devastating event certainly deserves a good song, and "Wasn't That A Mighty Storm" fits the bill. The song's origins are a little "swampy," but the first recording was apparently made in 1934 by a Library of Congress folk song collector named John Lomax. The singer: none other than a preacher named Sin-Killer Griffin, with prison inmates at Darrington State Farm Prison serving as the audience and chorus (I couldn't make this up, could I?). We don't know if this is the original 1934 recording, but this version showed up on YouTube a couple of months ago, complements of Sam Collins and, of course, good ol' Sin-Killer.

"Wasn't That A Mighty Storm" was rediscovered in the 1950s during the folk revival. Tom Rush's versions are probably the most iconic from that era. This YouTube video by Thomas Hynes features Tom Rush and friends doing a decidedly up-temp, foot-stompin' version of the song, set in startling contrast to images from the storm's aftermath, and even a map of the storm track. The song does sound upbeat and almost jubilant; I suppose that is what you get from the passing of a century and a few generations; this storm has passed in the realm of folklore (unless you live in Galveston, I suppose).

"Wasn't That A Mighty Storm" has also be performed by the likes of James Taylor, Nanci Griffith, and a great bluesy version by the Winnipeg-based Duhks. Those and other versions are available on your favorite music purchase/download site. One interesting historical note: the song references a floodway around Galveston, but such a wall apparently did not exist for much of the City in 1900.

Louisiana 1927

Another great flood song is "Louisiana 1927," written by Randy Newman as part of his 1974 Good Old Boys album. This is a moving, lyrical account of the "greatest flood in U.S. history." As the song indicates, this 1927 flood moved down the Mississippi, busting levees and flooding bottomlands from Cairo, Illinois down through Saint Bernards and Plaquemines parishes in Louisiana (some the latter intentionally dynamited, in theory to protect New Orleans). In the end, roughly 27,000 square miles were inundated.

Newman's ballad recounts not only the flood, but also the indifference shown by politicians, including President Coolidge, to the plight of those suffering terribly in the Deep South in the flood's aftermath, a familiar storyline in the Hurricane Katrina saga (see below). John M. Barry's remarkable book, Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America (Simon & Schuster, 1997), provides a narrative of this flood and explores the intersection of culture, politics, and river engineering.

We love this YouTube version of Newman's song, accompanied by photos and several maps. The song and images together evoke the heartbreak brought on by the devastating flood. This song has been covered by other musicians as well, but we particularly like the version by Old School Freight Train.

Music & Hurricane Katrina

As demonstrated above, when tragedy hits a city like New Orleans and the Mississippi Delta, you can bet that some music will surface soon thereafter. In the case of Hurricane Katrina, so many songs emerged out of the muddy waters of its aftermath that it's impossible to point to just one as its anthem.  Music-making had a major role in post-Katrina relief, not only for fundraising and but also for catharsis.  Just look at this long list of charity songs for Hurricane Katrina, some old but revived for the occasion, some written specifically about what happened on the Gulf Coast in August 2005.  There are blues and big brass songs, rap and hip-hop, symphonic instrumentals, and more, many of them not just unfolding the story of the massive storm, but railing on the government and others for not doing more to save those stuck in the flood and its fury.

Go Online & Buy Some Good Storm Music

Certainly, there's lots of free music available on YouTube and other sites. However, in the interests of supporting the musicians we are referencing in this article, please consider purchasing some of these tunes on the site of your choice. You can consider the following, and you are certainly encouraged to send along YOUR favorite storm and flood songs. Please email Dave at djh@cwp.org.

• Tom Rush, Tom Rush: New Year (2007)
• Nanci Griffith, Other Voices Too ( A Trip Back To Bountiful) (1998)
• The Duhks, Fast Paced World (2008)
• Randy Newman, Good Old Boys (1974; remastered in 2002)
• Old School Freight Train, Run (2005)
• Multiple songs/albums from the Hurricane Katrina list

By Reid Christianson, Bill Stack, and Deb Caraco

Introduction

In 2012, the Center partnered with the Kinnickinnic River Land Trust on a three phase watershed planning project in the Kinnickinnic (Kinni) watershed, a tributary to the St. Croix River located in western Wisconsin. The project goal is to track nutrient reduction progress resulting from past, current, and future implementation of water quality BMPs. The strong culture of stewardship in the Kinni watershed and the excitingly substantial level of stakeholder involvement play an important role in this project. Although the effort is in response to the Lake St. Croix Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for phosphorus, the desire to support and encourage all stakeholders in their efforts is also a significant driver. The rationale is that if people see that they are doing well, they will continue their efforts.

The primarily agricultural Kinni watershed includes a Class 1 trout stream along with several urban communities that have expressed interest in implementing stormwater BMPs. Over the years, agricultural BMPs have been implemented with cost share money as part of environmental conservation programs. These efforts were tracked at the county scale and did not necessarily collect information needed for estimating impacts on water quality.

In 1999, The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, and St. Croix and Pierce County Land Conservation Departments developed a comprehensive ten year Non-Point Source Control Plan for the Kinni to address sediment and phosphorus as well as other water quality issues related to wetland habitat restoration, thermal pollution and groundwater protection. This impressive effort identified specific on-the-ground problem areas and located many of the BMPs that had been implemented in the years prior to the plan.

Following these efforts, the next natural question was "how well are these BMPs doing to improve water quality?" To answer this question requires at least one of two things: (1) water quality monitoring to document the impact of various practices throughout the watershed or (2) a tool to catalogue and report efforts that have been made on the ground, and estimate their water quality benefits. Although there are future plans for monitoring water quality in the Kinni, a lack of existing water quality data directed the current efforts to focus on developing a tool to catalogue and track BMP implementation with the idea that the tool can ultimately be reconciled with water monitoring information as it becomes available.

Current Efforts

The Center is currently in Phase I of the project, which involves developing standards for BMP tracking and pollutant reduction estimates in the Kinni watershed. In approaching this task, Center staff needed to develop an understanding of the BMPs in place in the watershed, the methods used to track their implementation and the best studies available to quantify their benefits. In addition, it required an assessment of ongoing efforts to characterize the land cover in the watershed in better detail.

The first step was to organize a Technical Advisory Group comprised of researchers, conservation agents, representatives from both Minnesota and Wisconsin's state environmental agencies, local governments, and consultants who have worked on the St. Croix TMDL. Through a series of face to face meetings, conference calls and one-on-one conversations, the advisory group members shared their experiences, frustrations and needs in developing a more robust tracking tool that can be used at the field level and scaled to measure progress at the watershed level.

The findings from these discussions are that past efforts to track BMPs were not robust enough to track progress towards meeting the TMDL because of:

1. Tracking goals that were not initially designed to measure progress towards achieving the TMDL
2. Issues related to the protection of privacy of landowners participating in the program
3. Lack of a centralized clearinghouse/database
4. Change in personnel and difficulty in finding local records
5. Limited capacity of some urban areas to track stormwater management BMPs

Though previous efforts were not perfect, the lessons learned and the progress made since these initial efforts are being utilized by the Center along with current science to complete a Phase I project report. The report includes:

• Methods currently used to calculate BMP efficiencies in the Kinni Watershed
• Inconsistencies between techniques (e.g., BMPs where different efficiencies were assigned)
• Problems associated with tracking practices (examples may include: procedures for tracking temporary practices, or potential gaps resulting in underreporting of some practices)
• Coefficients and loading rates for more detailed land uses (e.g., crop type versus a broad "agricultural" classification)
• Measures to calculate benefits of multiple practices applied on a single property
• Gaps in knowledge after this initial data review

The next steps in the project include developing a comprehensive, yet flexible, tool to allow individual practices to be tracked across the agricultural and urban sectors. The resulting database will be used to inform larger watershed models such as the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), which will be used for TMDL compliance. Though the focus for Lake St. Croix is phosphorus, this effort will additionally include nitrogen due to a pending Gulf of Mexico TMDL. The Kinnickinnic River Land Trust is currently pursuing funding for the next project phase. The hope is that the Kinni will serve as a model for the other subwatersheds in the St. Croix River basin.

EPA's LID "Barrier Busters" Fact Sheet Series
EPA has just released a fact sheet series on the benefits of Low Impact Development (LID) and addressing obstacles to wider adoption of LID. This seven-part series of fact sheets is primarily intended for state and local decision makers who are considering adoption of LID, but who have concerns with LID. These fact sheets explain the benefits of LID in clear terms and through examples. Specific fact sheets in this series directly address specific concerns that have been raised about adopting LID, thereby busting barriers. 
 

Low Impact Development Video Series

The Center for Watershed Protection is pleased to announce the release of a three part instructional video series on Low Impact Development construction, installation and maintenance. These videos were produced in cooperation with the Chesapeake Stormwater Network with funding from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and additional support from Walmart and the Keith Campbell Foundation.