Edition 1

Not present

The Great Flood of 1993

Not present

Persistent rain from spring through summer 1993 saturated the upper Mississippi and Missouri basins, producing months of record or near-record flooding across nine states. Hundreds of levees failed or were overtopped, tens of thousands of people evacuated, about fifty people died, and damage reached roughly $15 billion. St. Louis recorded a crest that exceeded its modern record but remained behind its floodwall.

Not present

April–October 1993

Not present

Mississippi–Missouri river flood region

Not present

Wet soils and full rivers from the previous autumn left little storage capacity. Repeated storm tracks carried humid air over the same basin, while agricultural drainage, floodplain development, levees, and channel changes influenced where water went. A patchwork of federal, local, agricultural, and private levees provided very different levels of protection.

Not present

From June into August, recurring thunderstorms delivered extraordinary rain over Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. Tributary peaks overlapped rather than passing separately. On 16 July, floodwater breached levees near West Quincy, Missouri, closing a key Mississippi crossing; on 1 August the river crested at St. Louis after weeks of emergency work.

Not present

Residents sandbagged for weeks, while National Guard and emergency agencies evacuated towns and supplied isolated communities. Water contaminated wells, damaged treatment plants, covered farmland, disrupted rail and highway networks, and kept families displaced long after crests. Some levees were intentionally opened or allowed to fail to protect other areas, producing conflict over whose land absorbed water.

Not present

The flood prompted major federal review of floodplain policy. The Galloway Report recommended managing the basin as a system, limiting development, improving forecasts, sharing risk, and acquiring repeatedly flooded land. Thousands of properties were bought out and converted to open space, including much of Valmeyer, Illinois, which relocated to higher ground.

Not present

The 1993 flood demonstrates that a river basin is one connected system even when levees and governments divide it. Protection at one place can transfer height or risk elsewhere, and repeated emergency sandbagging cannot substitute for land-use choices and room for water.

Not present

High-water marks, relocated Valmeyer, buyout greenways, levees, St. Louis's floodwall, weather and stream-gauge archives, aerial imagery, and preserved damaged buildings record the event. Later floods allow direct comparison of which 1993 policy lessons were retained.

Not present

Fatality totals vary from forty-eight to about fifty depending on geography and indirect deaths. Damage estimates differ by inflation and included sectors. Statements that levees either caused or prevented 'the flood' are too broad; individual structures had distinct effects within meteorologically extreme basin-wide conditions.

Not present

Chaos Tourist editorial

Not present

The Great Flood of 1993
The Great Flood of 1993
Sharing the Challenge: Floodplain Management into the 21st Century

Not present

Persistent rain from spring through summer 1993 saturated the upper Mississippi and Missouri basins, producing months of record or near-record flooding across nine states.
From June into August, recurring thunderstorms delivered extraordinary rain over Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, Nebraska, and the Dakotas.
Fatality totals vary from forty-eight to about fifty depending on geography and indirect deaths.
The 1993 flood demonstrates that a river basin is one connected system even when levees and governments divide it.