The Great Midwest Flood Analysis

The Great Midwest Flood of 1993 The natural disaster that is known as flooding has inflicted great damage on the United States for 100s of years. In terms of natural disasters, flooding causes the most damage by far. Studies conducted by the U.S. Geological has determined that flooding causes an average of well over $6 billion of damage to property and is the reason that more Presidential Disaster Declarations per year are ordered. According to FEMA (2017) from May through September of 1993, major and/or record flooding occurred across North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Illinois. Fifty flood deaths occurred, and damages approached $15 billion. Hundreds of levees failed along the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. FEMA (2017). The Clinton Administration was in office when this disaster occurred and they took swift action in response to this natural disaster. Mr. James Lee Witt was FEMA Director at the time and his previous background in emergency management was instrumental in how he directed the agency in their response efforts during the flooding.

Presidential Disaster Declarations Because of the continuous rain fall that occurred in the summer months of 1993, states like Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, and Minnesota all received far more rain than the areas could deal with

There will always be shortcomings and pitfalls when emergency events take place. During the 1993 Great Midwest Floods, a number of deficits were clearly made evident throughout the entire emergency response efforts. There were deficiencies at every level of government. Two of the more prominent issues involve the lack of flood insurance for most of the infrastructure damage across the affected states and insufficient floodplain management