The Control of Nature

“It was at the Old River that the United States was going to lose its status among the world’s trading nations. It was at Old River that New Orleans would be lost.” 

The Old River is the section of water where the Atchafalaya threatens to overtake the Mississippi. If the Atchafalaya overtook the Mississippi, the city of New Orleans—and the greater region of southern Louisiana—would be destroyed, along with the coastal economy of this area. It was thus imperative, according to the Army Corps of Engineers, to build a strong mechanism—known as Old River Control—to contain the Atchafalaya. 

“The greatest arrogance was the stealing of the sun. The second-greatest arrogance is running rivers backward. The third-greatest arrogance is trying to hold the Mississippi in place.”

Oliver Houck—a professor of law at Tulane University—tries to underscore the arrogance that humans demonstrate in their belief that they can contain the Mississippi to a single course of flow. Houck makes this arrogance clear by comparing the manipulation of the Mississippi to other human efforts, such as stealing the sun or trying to reverse the course of rivers. In including this quote, McPhee shows that some humans believe that their power—and thus the Army’s power—is limited and will likely fail when it comes to the Mississippi. 

“And Dugie said, ‘You’ve heard of Murphy—‘What can happen will happen’? This is where Murphy lives.”

In the early part of this chapter, McPhee interviews LeRoy Dugas—nicknamed “Dugie”—who has worked at the Old River Control since 1963. Dugie is of Acadian origin and is native to the area. In his earlier years, Dugie thought that trying to direct the Mississippi’s flow was a foolhardy idea, since he grew up with flooding.