Mile 118.7 - RBD Davis Crevasse

118.7 RBD Davis Crevasse

Paddlers in need of seeking shelter from oncoming storms or high winds would find refuge in the rectangular peaceful harbor carved into the West Bank at 118.7RBD. The banks are soft mud lined with rip-rap, but you could make a landing also within this protected harbor, and stretch your legs, and picnic, and possibly make a decent campsite. Best location for camp would be at the mouth of the harbor, downstream side, where a broad field is found.

Rice was introduced in Louisiana very early in its colonial history, and by 1726 was being exported to Europe in small quantities. Today most of Louisiana's rice production is carried out on irrigated lands in the southwestern part of the State, but some of the early rice plantations were located along the banks of the Mississippi. Rice planters built flumes in the levee system to conduct the river water into the rice fields, and the flumes were a constant source of worry to levee boards that tried to maintain adequate protection from the frequent floods that struck the Lower Mississippi Valley. Louisiana law dictated specifications for the construction of all rice flumes that pierced the levee system, but the law was not always obeyed. The State Board of Engineers advocated the use of siphons instead of flumes, but siphons were not very popular with the rice planters, who found the flumes easy to build and less costly to operate. By 1884 the State laws were very strict, and rice planters were required to remove all below-standard or unlicensed flumes. Cutting the levee for new rice flumes was expressly prohibited. At Davis plantation, an old rice flume had been filled, apparently not very expertly, and on March 8,1884, at 1:00o'clock in the morning, the loose earth began to ooze out of the levee. Soon a 1,000-foot-wide crevasse opened up, and the flood waters poured into two Louisiana parishes. A railroad company whose rail line was affected by the crevasse expended a lot of money, time, and labor on an attempt to close the crevasse, but the effort failed. With the emergency repairs washed away, the railroad abandoned the crevasse on March 20, and it flowed unimpeded over the country below until the flood subsided. (Braggs)