Friday, December 11, 2009

Flood of 1993

Since we live in Missouri, I thought I would do a post on this event that most of us probably remember at least a little bit, and that had a huge effect on the Midwest.

The flood of '93 was one of the worst floods ever to happen in the United States. Basically, the year before the flood, rainfall was much higher than normal, and then that winter, there was heavy snowfall. These things combined created a lot of moisture in the soil and therefore led to the massive flooding that took place between April and August of 1993. According to Wikipedia, "Some locations on the Mississippi River flooded for almost 200 days while locations on the Missouri neared 100 days of flooding." The Mississippi River in St. Louis finally dropped back below flood levels on October 7, 1993.
I never knew this, but in August, after Valmeyer, Illinois had flooded, it was decided to intentionally break through a levee in order to save two important historic sites that were being threatened by the water, Prairie du Rocher and Fort de Chartes. In total, the flood cost the U.S. $15 billion, and it is the worst flood ever recorded on the Mississippi.

Missouri River flooding Chesterfield Valley

Flooding in Alton and along the Riverfront
JH

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