The Acts of Man

Flooding of near-historical proportions continues to trouble an already exhausted population along the rivers of the American Midwest. Saturated ground and incessant rains have brought water up and over the banks and levees to levels not seen since “the big flood” of 1993. What can be protected or saved, is being moved. The rest is simply left to the flood in the hope that things will eventually dry out.  

Source: The Rolling Stone

An article in the New York Times cites various mitigating actions taken by local governments in response to the 1993 deluge.  All have been covered on this page before:

1.  Expanding overflow areas along the rivers that are allowed to flood, providing a buffer between the water source and the most important development.

2.  Moving susceptible neighborhoods and communities to higher ground.

3.  Implementing disaster plans that mobilize volunteers and resources to reinforce barriers and provide support to impacted communities.

Unfortunately, each of these otherwise effective mitigation tools has been thwarted in some way by the sheer scope of the disaster:

1.  The overflow areas have not provided the intended protection. 

“Rather than building their community to live behind big flood walls, they’ve chosen to keep the community more engaged with the river,” said Larry Weber, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and a founder of the Iowa Flood Center at the University of Iowa.  But a lot has changed in downtown Davenport since 1993. The area is booming with breweries, loft apartments, competing boutique hotels and a year-round farmers’ market. Another addition: the Figge Art Museum, a modern structure overlooking the water. It is designed to withstand floods; this year, it has stayed open but was damaged. “It’s a point of pride in Davenport that it floods and that the river is allowed to flood,” said Tim Schiffer, the executive director of the Figge. “But this one has made everybody think again about that.”

2.  Communities that moved were still impacted in other ways.

Valmeyer, an agricultural village of 1,200 people, is separated from the Mississippi by lush farmland and a grassy berm that serves as a levee. In 1993, the river crested the berm, filling homes to their rooftops. Livestock drowned. School was held in trailers for two years. After that, most of the people of Valmeyer made the difficult — and somewhat radical — decision to move the entire town from the place they called “the bottoms” up a limestone hill to a place they call “the bluffs... The problem is that not everyone moved. Last week, the river had spilled into farmland at the town’s edges and was licking at the rim of Valmeyer’s levee, threatening to pour into still-occupied homes in the bottoms. Residents were scrambling to find hotels, or family members to stay with.

3.  Citizen volunteers have been slowly disappearing since 1993.

The motto of Clarksville, Mo., noted on a sign at the entrance to the town’s riverfront park, is “Touch the Mississippi.”  This week, the sign stands just above the water line. Tourists, who sometimes flock to town for an up-close view of the churning Mississippi, have fled.  In fact, there are few people left in Clarksville, population 442, to do the work of fighting floods.  The town has relied mostly on volunteers from AmeriCorps, female inmates from a local correctional facility and National Guard soldiers, all of whom work into the night building monumental sandbag walls.  Clarksville has flooded three times since March.

The town’s residents, many of whom are older, say they are simply worn out.  “We were kidding that the average age of those helping was 72, and that may not be too far off,” said Sue Lindemann, a town alderwoman, who also serves as Clarksville’s emergency management director.  “Twenty years ago, Clarksville was a very vibrant city and full of artisans,” said Ms. Lindemann, who is 70. “But a lot of the artisans have moved away, because if you’re under water for two months of the year, it’s hard to make money.”

Sandbagging in Clarksville, MO (from the New York Times)

A recent piece in Rolling Stone underscored the politics of climate change and its role in delaying real conversations about solutions. After an account of the finger pointing and blame being heaped on both sides, the article relays the thoughts of “Colin Wellenkamp, the executive director of the Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative (MRCTI), a group of 88 mayors from 10 states along the river working to better prepare for flooding.” Wellenkamp sounds like the voice of reason within the cacophony, asking why we can't just get along and solve the problem together.

“The new climate normal we’re faced with is not lost on any of our mayors,” says Wellenkamp. “Our mayors may have to talk about it differently at home inside their cities, depending on who they’re having the conversation with — that’s just a reality on the ground — but collectively as an association, the climate risk is not lost on us. It is unfortunate, because I think it does take solutions off the table,” says Wellenkamp, reflecting on his mayors’ meetings last month with national lawmakers, including White House staff, where he says mayors didn’t hold back on bringing up climate change....

Wellenkamp says there was no “rebuff” of climate change when speaking with members of Congress, especially at a bipartisan breakfast where Wellenkamp says Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Missouri) and Rep. Abby Finkenauer (D-Iowa) sat next to each other and openly discussed the issue. In his perception of it, Wellenkamp says global warming seems to be an accepted reality among lawmakers, just not in the White House. “It’s of concern that the position of the administration seems to be mired in this hesitance or unconvincability of it all,” he says.  “The good news is that in working with Congress, all the solutions are on the table and that’s where we focus our energy,” Wellenkamp says....

Despite dismal predictions, Wellenkamp is feeling optimistic because of the growing effort each year to stop the flooding before it starts. The phone call on March 22nd lasted longer than the hour they budgeted for – proof, he says, that there’s an increased awareness and interest in solving the issue. MRCTI leaders like Wellenkamp are also hopeful they’ll get much of the $7.86 billion they requested from the federal government last month and take a bite out of the Midwest’s flood fight.  “We came together in the midst of disaster,” Wellenkamp says. “We’re better prepared now than we were years ago.”

Gilbert White is said to have surmised that “Floods are an act of God; flood damages result from the acts of man.”  Snow will melt and rain will fall, but the short-sighted decisions made by humans to amend and interact with natural drainage systems in the land we call home are the real cause of the inundation in the Midwest. 

Real solutions aren’t easy, but they must be sought. Adapting our settlement patterns is a critical part of the effort to keep us all Out of Harm’s Way.