In 1993, a man named James Scott purposefully broke a levee, causing a large flood of the Mississippi River, to prevent his wife from returning home so he could party with his buddies. His activities flooded 14,000 acres of farmland, wrecked structures, and closed bridges. James Scott served 30 years in prison for provoking the flood, also known as the “Great Flood of 1993.”
He stated that he had just taken the bags to highlight a problem location in the levee, but one witness later alleged that Scott had told his pals another tale. Though almost 1,000 levees failed during the Great Flood, Scott was found guilty of breaking one of them.
No one was killed in the levee breach near West Quincy, Missouri, but it cost Scott his freedom. Not everybody thinks he is guilty. During the 1993 Mississippi flood, James Scott had the ingenious notion of intentionally undermining a riverbank by removing sandbags. The goal was to keep his wife on the opposite bank for as long as possible so they could continue to party with their buddies.
However, the breach caused land spanning about 57 km2 to flood, and James Scott was arrested and convicted of intentionally causing a catastrophe. By his 20s, he had a criminal record and had served time in six prisons. Scott is currently serving a sentence of 20 years to life in a Missouri prison. At the same time, most of these arrests were for burglary. In 1982, he burned down his elementary school. In 1988, he burned down a garage and set several other fires, earning him a sentence of seven years in prison.
Read More: The Ice Volcano of the Great Lakes
