FLOOD09407

• County: Statewide
• Basin: Statewide
• Title: Sharing the Challenge: Floodplain Management into the 21st Century
• Date: 6/1/1994
• Prepared For: Administration Floodplain Management Task Force
• Prepared By: Interagency Floodplain Mmanagement Review Committee
• Floodplain - Doc Type: Community File

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Figure 1. 7 indicates a significant reduction in the
number of buildings built in the tloodplain after 1980.
Since insured buildings tend to include newer, more
expensive buildings with mortgages subject to the
mandatory tlood insurance purchase requirement, the
percentage and numbers of all buildings built prior to
enactment of the NFIP are likely to be even higher.

Figure 1.7 Construction Dates of NFIP Insured
Buildings in the Nine Midwest States

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<195l '!i).$ '00-69 70-79 'oo.llI >1990
YEARS

Source: Federal Emergency Management Agency, Federal Insuraace
Administration. Computer Printout, March 28, 1994.

Acquisition and relocation. Acquisition or relocation
of tloodprone buildings through federal programs Qr
state and local initiatives continues to be an important
strategy for reducing potential tlood damages.
Successful bUY-<Jut programs nonnally are a response to
a flood or series of tloods. lmplemention occurs over a
multi-year period as funding becomes available, The
Review Committee identified more than 600 buildings
in the upper Mississippi River Basin which have been
acquired and relocated out of tloodprone areas over the
past 20 years. Most of these buildings had been
damaged previously by tloods and would have been
severely damaged by the higher waters of the Flood of
1993.

THE FLOOD OF 1993

Upland Watershed Treatment

The Flood of 1993 demonstrated the value of installing
tlood-prevention measures and of improving land-
treatment practices on agricultural lands throughout the
watershed. In npland watershed areas, the Soil
Conservation Service (SCS) small watershed projects
prevented damages estimated at $400 million. Crop
losses to landowners were lower in areas with upland
watershed treatment. An example is the SCS project on
the Grindstone-Lost-Muddy Watershed Project that
protects approximately 60 percent of Dekalb County
and portions of Clinton, Gentry, and Davies counties in
Missouri. Flood protection on the 326-sq. mi.
watershed includes land treatment, flood prevention,
multi-purpose tlood control reservoirs, and erosion-
grade control structures. The project area recorded two
storms exceeding the i-percent chance of occurrence in
July and September 1993. Estimated agricultural
benefits accrued were $915,900 for the July storm and
$989,700 for the September stonn with road and bridge
benefits of $66,000 and $70,000, Agricultural disaster
payments per acre in Dekalb County were less than half
those paid in neighboring counties. Since the storm,
local people have donated $3,000 to purchase Iandrights
for construction of remaining tlood control reservoirs.

Flood Damage Reduction Projects

The USACE estimates that tlood-control facilitie~ in
place during the 1993 tlood prevented $19.1 billion in
damages." Of that total, $11.5 billion in damages were
prevented along the Missouri River. Damages
prevented by the water control management of tlood
storage reservoirs amounted to $7 A billion in the
Missouri River Basin; $4.0 billion by the storage of
flood water in the six main stem Missouri River
reservoirs, and $3A billion by the dams and reservoirs
on the tributaries, The other $4, I billion in damages
prevented along the Missouri River is attributed to levee
projects. USACE and Bureau of Reclamation tlood
control reservoirs on the main stem and tributaries in
the Missouri River Basin reduced peak discharges on
the Missouri River by storing over 17 million acre-feet
of tlood water between June and August." In the St.
Louis metropolitan area, a combination of upstream
reservoirs, levees. and flondwalls prevented damages of
approximately $3 billion, Upstream reservoirs and

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