 What was the effect on the Mississippi River after the disaster?
East, where sharp reports and muffled wheezes told of continued buckling and dropping, the earth trembled downward. The Arkansas River, at Avondale and North Avondale, was sluggishly backing north into the deepening trough. By 16 September the landslip had crept down the Huerfano River past Cedarwood. Virtually all east-west land communication was suspended and the President declared a national emergency. Tremendous fissures opened up perpendicular to the Fault, and a general subsidence of the land was noticeable well into Kansas and Nebraska. The western borders of these states, and soon of the Dakotas and Oklahoma as well, were slowly sinking. Nearly two million people were on the move, and the U. S. was faced with a gigantic wave of refugees.
 It has diminished to only a fraction of what it once was
 It has grown substantially.  It has increased river shipping  It has merged with the Missouri  It has diminished to only a fraction of what it once was