Flooding in the Midwest

[ISUKappa]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

But when you talk about stuff in the 100 year or 500 year flood plain, should the govt. buy that too? How much farm land would that involve that would make sense NOT to plant most years? I know nobody suggested that, but I just don't think we'll ever get to the level when we can completely anticipate and negate the relatively awesome power of natural forces.

It wouldn't make sense, at least in most of the cities, for FEMA to buy out the 100- or 500-year plain. That would completely wipe out our downtown and a good chunk of private property. It would also take out half the University of Iowa campus. In those areas, it's better to build up levees and refine emergency plans in the event another flood like this does occur.

As far as farmland goes, it's a hard call. Farmers know there's always risk in their occupation. They at least get some assistance through insurance and the ever-hated subsidies when faced with massive crop loss such as this. With the current demand and price for commodity crops, though, they would be insane to let their land lay fallow. There are some environmental practices they can use to help with drainage, but those are minimal in a catastrophic flood event.

The titles 100-year and 500-year floodplain are somewhat misleading, too (IMO). 100-year floodplain is the area that has a 1% potential to flood in any given year. 500-year floodplain is the area that has a .2% chance to flood in any given year. Generally speaking, when given odds such as those, you're not going to let your land sit.

As in 1993, the heavily flooded areas received an extreme amount of precipitation from April-June (really, since January) due to a stagnant Jet stream stuck right over Iowa/Wisconsin and a constant rotation of very moist high/low pressure systems. That created the massive thunderstorms we've had in May and June. The ground was already saturated from a wet spring and streams and rivers were extremely swollen due to snow melts. The combination of all those factors led to the severe flooding.