ST. LOUIS – Tuesday marks 30 years since a turning point of sorts for St. Louis in “The Great Flood of 1993.”
On Aug. 1, 1993, the Mississippi River peaked at a crest of 49.6 feet in Downtown St. Louis, its highest point in modern U.S. history and nearly 20 feet above flood stage.
Though flood conditions plagued St. Louis and much of the Midwest for several months, the turn to August marked unprecedented levels of flooding. The National Weather Service reports the flooding led to a river flow rate of around 1.08 million cubic feet of water every second on Aug. 1, enough to fill Busch Stadium II from the bottom to the top in around 70 seconds.
In present day, a plaque on stairways of the Gateway Arch National Park marks approximately where Mississippi River water reached at its highest level ever. It wouldn’t be until Oct. 7, 1993, that the Mississippi River dropped below flood stage in St. Louis. At that point, the river had been above flood level for more than 100 days near downtown.
Nationwide, “The Great Flood of 1993” led to 50 flood-related deaths and more than $15 billion in damages from April to October. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates around 10,000 homes were destroyed, while the flooding also posed concerns for crop losses and chemical pollution.
The St. Louis metro and several communities in Iowa along the Mississippi River were among the hardest hit, but impacts stretched to nine different states.
What led up to the historic flooding?
According to the National Weather Service, a wet fall in 1992 led to soil moisture and reservoir levels above normal in the Mississippi and Missouri River basins. The winter brought above-average snowfall, and snowmelt inevitably added to rising river levels.
The spring of 1993 packed persistent and repetitive storm systems to the Midwest, brining as much as four feet of rain to some parts of Iowa from April to August. Excess water from the Mississippi River flowed south, setting the stage for flooding in St. Louis.
A 52-foot flood wall, designed after St. Louis studied the impacts of previous floods, was built to handle the volume of 1993’s peak flooding with nearly two feet to spare, preventing the potential of major devastation downtown.
What was the response? What was learned?
Less than two weeks after the flood peaked in St. Louis, then President Bill Clinton signed a $5.7 billion flood relief bill to help victims and enable more flood response resources nationwide. During one trip to St. Louis in July 1993, Clinton had the chance to survey flood damage from a helicopter.
Meanwhile, the federal government spent more than $4.2 billion into flood-control and emergency response efforts, according to a 2003 report from the United States Geological Survey. FEMA also contributed around $1.14 billion for flood mitigation projects, including sandbagging activities.
Throughout 1993, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers used real-time streamflow data to determine ongoing patterns and regulate the release of reservoir waters. The Army Corps also assisted dozens of levee districts that qualified for federal assistance, such as repairing wells and pump stations.
A 2020 St. Louis regional hazard mitigation plan expressed the need for communities to take special action to reduce flood damage to the extent of what happened in 1993. Suggestions included protecting stream buffers from development, prohibiting development along flood plains, dry-flood historic buildings, stabilizing soil and more.
Check out the photo slideshow above with various photos from the Associated Press and Getty Images during the Great Flood of 1993.