FLOOD06680

• County: Statewide
• Basin: Statewide
• Title: Flood Damage in the United States, 1926-2000
• Date: 6/1/2000
• Prepared By: NOAA
• Floodplain - Doc Type: Flood Documentation Report

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In 1983, when Congress asked the USACE for annual reports of flood damage suffered,
Storm Data was the only available nationwide source of damage estimates, Under contract to
US ACE to provide estimates, NWS-HIC compiled the limited information available, In the
years that followed, methods of compiling and checking the estimates were established and
gradually improved. These estimates are published annually in the U,S, Army Corps of
Engineers Annual Flood Damage Report to Congress (US ACE 1983-2001),

In the USACE damage reports from 1983 to 1988, narrative descriptions of floods are quite
brief (\12 to % page), Many states have no damage estimate but an asterisk (*) indicates that
flooding occurred, The 1984 report explains that the table gives a summation of all major flood
events but that damage estimates are unavailable for minor flood events. After 1988, the
descriptions of flooding and flood damage are more detailed, Beginning in 1991, the asterisk is
no longer used and there are few zero entries in the tables, It appears that considerably more
record keeping and analysis has gone into damage reports since 1989,

Table 2-2 lists the types of flood loss reported in each of the above publications, From
1933 to 1977, estimates were divided into several categories, separated into property and
agricultural damage, compiled by river basin, and presented by calendar year, In 1983, the loss
categories, spatial scale, and time period changed, Estimates were summarized by state and
fiscal year, In 1993, the distinction between property and agricultural damage was eliminated,
Throughout the entire period, estimates focused on direct physical damage, though some data on
loss of business and wages were included before 1947, Little is known about the methods used
to compile and check the estimates prior to 1980, The published reports themselves show an
intent to include all parts of the United States and all types of physical damage,

D. Additional Sources of Flood Damage Estimates
To compile and evaluate a continuous time series of damage estimates, we supplemented
the NWS estimates with comparable data from other sources, Comparable estimates should
represent direct physical damage in significant flood events, Extensive information would be
required to fill the 1976-1982 gap in the state and national estimates, In addition, independent
estimates or cost information were needed to assess the accuracy of the estimates, Reports from
many sources were used to confirm damage estimates and to provide information about specific
floods,

Reports by Federal Agencies and Task Forces
Several federal agencies prepare reports after severe flood events, in order to study the
causes of particular floods and recommend improvements in systems of flood monitoring,
warning, or control. Some of these reports include descriptions of earlier floods in the
community, and some provide damage estimates,

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