1993 Floods in Mississippi

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h/w                                                                Monday, 25 November 2002

Case Study: 1993 Floods in Mississippi

        For an incredible 144 days, the people of Mississippi, but more specifically St. Louis lived in fear. The gigantic Mississippi River was above flood stage between the 1st of April 1993 and the 30th of September later on the same year. The events between created the largest floods in the USA and devastated an area larger than the UK.

        The Midwestern streams that were flooded were the Mississippi, Missouri, Kansas, Illinois, Des Moines, and Wisconsin. These streams rose higher and higher by the day, but the National Weather Services had already predicted below normal precipitation for the summer, but above average rainfall meant flooding. Despite this, the first heavy rainfalls started in Dakota, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. This was followed by the upper 200 miles of the Mississippi River to be closed to traffic. Around 100 homes were under water, as the first dams burst. Between the 5th of June and the 16th of June, the Keokuk and Fort Madison bridges in Iowa had to be closed. As were the Quincy II, Alton and Burlington bridges. By now the river had spread an impressive seven miles inland. However, even more remarkable, was the amount of water flowing under the Eads Bridge. It was eleven times the volume of Niagara Falls, and could fill the world famous baseball Busch Stadium every 65 seconds. Despite this and several warnings, the Mississippi locks were reopened for traffic to flow.

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At the end of this tragedy, around 3 billion cubic meters of water had been overflowed from the river channels to the floodplain downstream at St. Louis. This covered 17000 square miles of land covering nine states: North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois. Around 50 people in total died as a result. 26000 people had to be evacuated, and around 56000 homes were destroyed. Around $11,000,000,000 worth of damage was created as a direct result, but loss of wages, business and production, could not be easily calculated. The greatest affected area, were the cities ...

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