In the months of May through September 1993 a disaster struck the Midwest. Throughout North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Illinois had major flooding that killed up to 50 people, and damages were estimated to be around $15 billion. A critical factor that affected the record flooding was the rainfall. During June through August 1993, the Eastern Dakotas, Southern Minnesota, Eastern Nebraska, Wisconsin, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana experienced rainfalls with up to or greater than 12 inches (L.W. Larson, 1996). The record summer rainfalls helped produce the severe flooding of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. The Great Flood of 1993 was set by June 1 because of the saturated soil and streams being filled to capacity in the Upper Midwest (L.W. Larson, 1996).
Often referred to as the “Mother of All Floods,” the Great Flood of 1993 is one of the most powerful floods in the Mississippi River Basin to occur in the last 200 years because of the extent, duration and magnitude (David H. Hickcox, 1993). Significant rainfall in June and July of 1993 in the Upper Midwest, along with wet soil conditions, only added to the severe flooding in the Upper Mississippi River Basin (L.W. Larson, 1996). The amount of rainfall the Midwest was experiencing was unprecedented. For example, in early July, Iowa experienced even more major rainfalls with 8 inches being the common. These storms caused severe flooding on the Iowa, Skunk, and Des Moines Rivers in Iowa. The flow from the Iowa, Skunk, and Des Moines River, combined with already near-record flows on the Mississippi River pushed the flood stage at St. Louis up to a new record high stage of 47 feet on July 20th (L.W. Larson, 1996). In mid to late July, heavy rain again returned except further west in North Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri. Due to severe rainfalls, the Missouri River crested at 48.9 feet in Kansas City on July 27th which broke the previous crest record by 2.7 feet (L.W. Larson, 1996). This crest pushed down the Missouri River, breaking old standards as it went through various locations. What’s a crest? A crest is the highest part of a wave. This huge flow joined the overcapacity Mississippi River just north of St. Louis, and it pushed the Mississippi to another record crest of 49.47 feet at St. Louis on August 1st (L.W. Larson, 1996).
The Great Flood of 1993 had many impacts. Thousands of people were forced to evacuate their homes, and some never returned. At least 10,000 homes were completely destroyed while at least 75 towns were totally and completely under flood waters. Although the death toll wasn’t high, the emotional toll was big! Thousands of people watched as their whole life got washed away, losing everything they own. The Great Flood of 1993 affected thousands of farms as will. An estimated 15 million acres of farmland was declared unusable (L.W. Larson, 1996). This meant that the crops on the land were destroyed, a severe amount of erosion took place, and layers of sediment were deposited on the land making the fields unusable. The Great Flood of 1993 was responsible for fifty deaths, which showed that even though some mitigation approaches failed, some succeeded which helped allowed people to be safe. An unexpected impact from this disaster was how it impacted transportation. On the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, barge traffic was stopped for nearly two months. The barge industry financially took a hit. Every day a river was closed they would lose an estimated $3 million a day (David H. Hickcox, 1993). Many bridges across the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers were either destroyed or closed because approach roads were flooded (David H. Hickcox, 1993). The flood caused a number of interstate highways and roads to close, commercial airports were flooded, railroad traffic in the Midwest was halted, and numerous sewage/water treatment plants were destroyed as a result. (L.W. Larson, 1996). This natural disaster severely impacted transportation, causing shipping costs to increase rapidly as a result.
I believe that on a scale from 1 to 10, I’d give the preparedness a 7 but its hard to be prepared facing a “one-hundred-year flood”. When state officials first learned about the potential flood, they immediately started to reinforce levees with sandbags in hopes of strengthening their defenses, evacuating people in potential affected areas too. Though, the surging waters flowing down the Mississippi and Missouri and the lesser rivers proved to much for the recently reinforced levees. As a result, anywhere up to 1,100 levees failed, causing entire communities to be underwater (J. Williams, 1993). Many people trust that these levees will save their life and it’s the governments responsibility to keep these levees updated. Local and State governments should make it their goal for levees to never fail when it is most needed. G.R. Dyhouse, St. Louis Division, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers News, said, “…the Great Flood of 1993…was not caused by levees, loss of wetlands, navigation structures, flood plain development, or any of several other reasons that have been brought up by various individuals. The flood was caused by unprecedented rainfall (N. Pinter, 2005).” The estimated damages were around $15 billion but the damage total would have been much higher if we didn’t have the flood-control structures we had. It was estimated that those structures actually prevented $19 billion in damages (N. Pinter, 2005). Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been encouraging the development and implementation of mitigation programs to lessen the impact of future floods on people’s lives and property. FEMA wants safe building within floodplains, removing homes altogether from floodplains, and enforce effective building codes (N. Schwartz, 2005). These type of policies can help lessen the impact on lives and communities that can be attributed to floods. The most widespread mitigation program is the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). Roughly 20,000 communities in the United States participate in the NFIP by using and implementing floodplain management ordinances to reduce future flood damage (N. Schwartz, 2009). In exchange, the NFIP is able to provide federally-backed flood insurance to people in those communities. We need to listen to FEMA’s and the NFIP’s policies about floods because those could help save our lives. After every major Natural Disaster, we need to review our mitigation policies to see which worked or which failed, once we identify the ones that fail, we need to update these policies.
The Great Flood of 1993 was crippling to the Midwest. The amount of rainfall that the Midwest had leading up and during the flood only helped the major flooding seen. This disaster caused billions of damages, halted transportation for months, destroyed millions of crops, left thousands homeless, and opened the eyes of the American people just how deadly floods can be. The “Mother of All Floods,” will also be remembered for it’s unusual magnitude of the crests, the number of record crests, large area impacted, and the length of the time the flood remained an issue (L.W. Larson, 1996). Looking back, the Great Flood of 1993 will be a “defining event” that will be studied by generations to come.