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Summer/Fall 1995 WATER TALK Page 17 loo plain ert vilale fro . r y r nineer ST PAUL. MN An 18-month assessment of floodplain activities and. the 1993 Midwest Flood by the Army Corps of Engineers provides information useful to planners and decision makers involved in flood control, floodplain management, and zoning. Congress directed the Corps to prepare the assessment following the Great Flood of 1993 in the Midwest. Since then, two floods in California, flooding in New Orleans, Georgia, Texas, North Dakota, and another flood along the lower Missouri River, have kept flooding in the news from coast to coast. alternatives for floodplain management. The report looks at: • floodplain economics (flood damage, disaster payments, business activities, and farrnirig); • the environmental issues associated with floodplains and flooding (things like how restoring the floodplain to its natural state would effect the level of the next flood); • the social issues (how people aze connected to the river and floodplain; what do the people who live along the rivers want the floodplains to "produce"); and • the hydraulics of a major flood event (how the rivers flow). The essential question addressed by this report is "What goes on in the floodplain and what can be done to reduce damages during the next big flood." The 400-page "Floodplain Management Assessment" was released. by the Corps in late June. Corps specialists from Omaha. Kansas City, St. Louis, Rock Island (Illinois), and St. Paul worked on the assessment. e traditional efiniti loo plain ay not e adequate. While this assessment was prepared as a report to Congress on flooding and floodplain management in the Midwest, many believe it provides valuable information for local, state, and federal officials anywhere flooding is a problem. In preparing the report, the assessment team looked at the 1993 flood on the upper Mississippi and lower Missouri rivers and their major tributaries-neazly 3,500 miles of river. The team collected data on floodplain activities, inventoried critical facilities, reviewed federal policies and programs, and analyzed a variety of While the 400-page report focuses on the upper Mississippi and lower Missouri rivers, several findings and conclusions have wider application: Flood damage reduction measures, such as reservoirs and levees, can reduce property damage. during a major flood event. Reservoirs and levees worked as designed during the 1993 flood. They lowered flood levels by several feet, preventing an estimated $19 billion in additional damages. Computer modeling of the 1993 flood verified that no single alternative provides beneficial results throughout the study azea. Applying a single policy system-wide may cause undesirable consequences at some locations. The federal philosophy on flood damage protection recognizes that avoidance of flood danger is the best protection. If you can't. avoid an azea subject to flooding, then protection by structural barriers pocal flood levees and floodwalls) may be feasible. Finally, floodplain residents and property owners can protect their investment by carrying the proper type and amounts of insurance (crop, National Flood Insurance Program, and personal property insurance). The traditional definition of floodplain may not be adequate. Flood losses in the 1993 flood were substantial in areas outside the 100-year floodplain-the standazd used by the National ...oont(nued on page 19