Great Flood, The

In the summer of 1993, rain clouds hung over the Midwest for three months straight. Some states saw seven times the usual amount of rain. All that water drained into the region's rivers, particularly the Mississippi. A flood-a great flood-was coming.

The Mississippi is a giant river. Its watershed-the area of land that drains into it-covers most of the land between the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians. In 1993, rainwater that fell on the watershed was flowing into the Mississippi faster than the river could move downstream and drain into the Gulf of Mexico.

Floods on the Mississippi were nothing new. After the river flooded in 1927, the government built levees-sloping walls made of dirt or cement-to contain the river. As the river swelled in 1993, people who lived near it reinforced the levees with sandbags. But the river was stronger than the walls, and, from Minnesota to southern Illinois, water spilled over the Mississippi's banks, fast and furiously. One witness said the water breaching a levee in Iowa created "a roar, a raging roar like a freight train."

In nine states, the river and its tributaries broke through again and again to spread across the neighboring lowlands. Whole towns were under water. When it was clear their homes would soon be flooded, thousands of people left with what they could carry. Some people moved their furniture to the second floor and hoped for the best. One man dug out his tomato plants and hung them from a clothesline.

In all, 20 million acres flooded, including cities, small towns, and fields of corn and soybeans. Some 50,000 houses were damaged or destroyed, and when the water finally receded, people returned to homes that dripped with mud. In the end, the flood caused $15 billion in damages.

Floods are a natural part of a rivers cycle, and huge floods occur on the Mississippi every few hundred years. A few hundred years before the 1993 flood, the area it damaged looked very different indeed. Back then, there weren't cities and farms all along the river's banks. When the river flooded, water spread out across the floodplain, the low-lying area surrounding the river. The receding water left behind loads of fine dirt called silt, which made the soil extremely rich and nutritious for growing things.

Settlers knew that the floodplain soil was perfect for farming. And the river was the best way to get crops from place to place by boat. To help speed the flow of the river and make it easier for ships to navigate, engineers straightened and narrowed its channel in places. And some of the wetlands on the river's floodplain were drained of water and planted with crops.

These changes made the river and floodplain more useful for people, but they also made floods more damaging. Penned in by levees and concrete barriers, the swelling river couldn't widen its banks as it grew. Drained wetlands could no longer act as natural sponges, soaking up rainwater that would otherwise flow into the river.

In 1993, even as broken levees were repaired, people wondered whether it made sense to rebuild on land that would certainly flood again. Many farmers decided that the rich floodplain soil was worth the price of later floods, but some sold their land to the government, which began turning the cornfields back into wetlands.

Some people decided the risk of floodplain living was too high. The flood destroyed nearly all the buildings in Valmeyer, Illinois, so 1,400 residents decided to rebuild their houses, shops, and schools on a bluff overlooking the site of their old town. The townspeople might miss the old Valmeyer, but they know that when the Mississippi floods again, their town will stay dry.

Copyright Carus Publishing Company Apr 2007
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