Sandbagging at Alton, Illinois during the 1993 flood.
Crops destroyed in the 1993 flood.
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Sandbagging at Alton, Illinois during the 1993 flood. |
As anyone who witnessed the great summer 1993 Mississippi River flood knows,
inhabitants of bottomlands risk loss of life and property during major flood
events. Historic flood events were no less devastating. The record flood
of 1844, for example, permitted the steamboat Bee to make regular runs across
the valley from the western to the eastern bluffs - floodwaters covered almost
the entire floodplain! It is notable that, for the past few centuries,
the 1993 flood ranks second only to that of 1844.
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