The photograph shows the Bucktown section of Jefferson Parish following the (unnamed) hurricane of September 1947. It was probably taken about ten days after the storm passed over the area. The extensive flooding was caused by two breaches in the levee of the Seventeenth Street Canal, one of which occurred about a mile south of Bucktown.

Today, just to the right of the Old Hammond Highway bridge over the Canal, a massive pumping system stands ready to serve Jefferson Parish and neighboring New Orleans (the Canal forms part of the boundary between the two political entities). That pumping system became necessary after the installation of a floodwall in response to the post-Hurricane Katrina flood (on the New Orleans side this time) that devastated the Crescent City in August-September 2005. As impressive as the new system is, it is just a temporary solution until the Corps of Engineers can develop a permanent (we hope) means of protecting Greater New Orleans from future flooding.