Term Paper on "Mississippi River Flood of 1993"

Term Paper 7 pages (2247 words) Sources: 8 Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Mississippi River Flood of 1993

The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1993, also known as the Great Flood of 1993, is considered unparalleled in magnitude, extent and impact and possibly the costliest and most devastating to impact the U.S. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 1996). Before it subsided in October that year, it had inundated 20 million acres in nine States, damaged or destroyed roughly 50,000 homes and forced around 54,000 people to be evacuated. Total damage cost was estimated at $20 billion. It severely affected transportation for almost two months. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reported that 40 out of 229 federal levees and 1,043 out of 1,347 non-federal levees were overtopped or damaged by the flood (NOAA).

This record flooding occurred from May to September 1993 across North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin and Illinois (Larson 1996). Its magnitude and severity were so overwhelming that the Flood ranks as one of the greatest natural disasters to hit the U.S. Around 600 river forecast points in the Midwest were above the flood stage all at the same time. It affected almost 150 major rivers and tributaries. Fifty flood deaths were reported (Larson). Causes or factors of the Great Flood were attributed the saturation of soils and increased stream levels in the fall of 1992, the snowpack in the central U.S., heavy rainfall in late March, the saturation of the northern ends of the Missouri River and an unusually persistent weather pattern from June to early August (Larson). The Bermuda High was stronger and farther in the north and in the west than usual and thus prevented storms from taking the normal track across the Ohio Valley. The storm systems instead regenerated in the Central Plains. Large amounts of rainfall fell on the nine States, some with more than 4 feet of rain. Record flooding occurred at approximately 500 weather forecast points and many places went above flood stage from three to five months straight, the Mississippi River at above 32 feet flood stage for 126 days. Water from the River flowed into the Big Muddy and Ohio Rivers and caused Murphysboro and Cairo to exceed the flood stage. The damage was traced along the Mississippi River on both the Missouri and Illinois sides. In Cape Girardeau, Scott, Mississippi and New Madrid Counties, close to 100,000 acres of rich farmland was lost to the flood at around $22 million. Around 2,400 people had to be evacuated in Jackson, Union and Alexander Counties (NOAA). At least 10,000 homes were totally destroyed and hundreds of towns were damaged or complete under flood waters (Larson 1996). A chief cause of the record flooding was the nearly continuous rainfall. Many places in the 9 affected States had as many as 20 days of rain and more the following month as compared to only 8-9 rainy days average. This persistent rain-producing weather pattern in the Upper Midwest enhanced the daily development of rainfall in most parts of that summer. A lot of rain in June and July in the Upper Midwest combined with wet soil conditions, which caused severe flooding. In early July, there were numerous rains in Iowa and record flooding occurred on the Skunk, Iowa and Des Moines Rivers. Des Moines was particularly hard hit on July 9. Heavy rains continued west in late July to North Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri. There were 92 new locations with new record crests during the Flood. It was unusual in other ways. It was widespread and covered 9 States and 400,000 square miles, topped or damaged 1,000 levees and was of extremely long duration, lasting to nearly 200 days in some places. Lastly, the Mississippi River Flood of 1993 was so big that it simply overwhelmed everyone and everything at the time. Cohesive soils also minimized its erosional impact but the contrasting geomorphological response of the different reaches of the Upper Mississippi River flood plain to levee failure clearly illustrated the necessity of accounting for the threshold provided by erosional resistance in addition to flood hydrology when comparing the sensitivity of flood plains with rae high-magnitude events (Gomez et al.).

Not only did the Mississippi River take 46 lives and destroy thousands of homes as it reclaimed 64 million acres of land (Gutin 1994). It incurred as much as $10 billion worth of damage and changed the fate of some plants and animals living in the River adna around it. Several of the oldest, tallest cottonwoods, roosts of the endangered bald eagle, were flushed out in the fast water. Herbicide in the runoff from farms flowed in the five weeks of the peak flooding into the Gulf of Mexico than it would normally flow through the entire year. Biologists worried that this could affect the aquatic vegetation of migratory waterfowl. Other organisms adversely affected included the paddlefish, the walleye, and the Northern pile. The Flood may have also helped some native species reclaim territory they lost to invaders. Ecologists believed that the River would take care of its own problems (Gutin).

But evidence for the Weather Hypothesis showed a decline in species richness and abundance of birds in 1994 as the main result of the 1993 Flood (Knutson and Klaas 1997). Insectivores were among them. Resident species, birds of high management concern, interior-edge species, species with medium territory size, and hole nesters also declined in number. Three other studies conducted during the year of the Flood in the Upper Mississippi River offered direct evidence for the low productivity in birds. It showed only smaller clutch sizes than herons in less affected areas. Red-shouldered Hawks also declined in number as compared with that in pre-Flood years. The other observation consisted of increased abundance of un-flooded plots in 1993 as compared with a decline or stability of flooded plots. It was interpreted to mean that many species were displaced from their nearby flooded habitats to unflooded habitats. Of the 84 species studies in all plots, 41 decreased in abundance between 1992 and 1994. Cool, wet conditions could have contributed to the poor reproductive level of these species and only combined with the effects of the 1993 Flood. The displacement of bird abundance by flooded plots was most evident in neotropical migrants, species preferring habitat edges, lower-canopy nesters and species that forage in the air (Knutson and Klaas).

Major floods of long duration or high amplitude, like the Mississippi River Flood of 1003 can substantially change vegetative cover (Knutson and Klaas 1997). Bird groups may respond to such changes in availability of nest sites and food resources as a result of weather disturbances. Some species increase in number while some decrease. This study suggested that the pattern of change in abundance of these species would differ between flooded and un-flooded areas because structural changes in habitat occur on flooded and not on un-flooded areas. It also proposed that multi-species declined in abundance in both flooded and un-flooded areas and that this decline was the consequence of reduced productivity in wet or cool weather associated with a flood and not from the Flood disturbance itself. It also concluded that insectivores were the most affected species by severe weather conditions like the 1993 Flood (Rotenberry et al. 1995 as qtd in Knutson and Klaas).

The natural tendency is to help those affected by a major calamity like the 1993 Flood, but it was observed that unless changes were made on the incentives associated with floodplain management, the public was bound to re-incur expensive relief efforts when another disaster struck (Wahl 1994). Local entities incurred the brunt of the costs for the construction of levees. Federal insurance was short of covering federal expense on the construction of these levees. Federal objectives should, therefore, be adjusted to respond to the need to focus on nonstructural measures and the restoration of wildlife. Funding would be needed for conservation and flood easing on private land and it could be extracted from an expanded or redesigned federal Conservation Reserve Program. If properly structured, many such programs would not be federally funded at all. Most of the benefits of flood protection and mitigation and relief efforts would still accrue to the residents of the floodplain. In the case of the Great Flood of 1993 in Mississippi, most of the structures and lands affected belonged to private individuals with private insurance. One measure would be to intentionally dissipate the flood by opening or breaching levees and flooding lower-value agricultural areas in order to reduce flood flows through higher-value urbanized locations. The objective would be to reduce damages over the floodplain. No matter how big the capacity of the physical flood-control structures, their capacity would always be exceeded. This could be considered in deciding what dikes to rebuild and what flood management plans to incorporate for opening gates or breaking dikes in order to accommodate stronger floods. Primary beneficiaries of reduced flood flows would involve residents of urban and downstream areas paying for flood insurance in areas subject to intentional flooding. Regardless of… READ MORE

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