Great Mississippi Floods: Which is Worse?

Within one century, between 1912 to 2011, there has been 3 major floods of the Mississippi River: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, The Great Flood of 1993, and The 2011 Mississippi River Flood.  All of these major flood events have been devastating, but which one is actually worse?

The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 held the record for the most destructive river flood in the history of the United States.  It filled the tributaries in Kansas and Iowa to the max capacity and caused the Cumberland River in Tennessee to top its levees to a record height of 56.2 feet.  The flooding was so bad the it broke the levee at Mounds Landing causing a chain reaction of multiple levees breaking.  By the time all was said and done, 145 levees were broke and 27,000 square miles flooded.  The flooded areas had water sitting 50 miles wide, 100 miles long, and was as deep as 30 feet in some areas.  Over $400 million in damages and a death toll of 246.  Later in 1927, the width of the Mississippi River reached an amazing 60 miles south of Memphis, TN.  This flood help create a very important factor of preventing it to happen again and that was the erection of the Morganza Spillway.

Now going to 1993 when another major flood occured in the Mississippi River and the Missouri River.  Some say this flood exceeds the 1927 flood, but it depends on which particular area of the flood you are talking about.  The damage of the 1993 flood is $15 billion with a death toll of 50.  The flooded area covered an area as big as 30,000 square miles.  The Mississippi River flooded for almost 200 days.  About 100,000 homes were destroyed, 15 million acres were overwhelmed with water, and 2 towns, Valmeyer, Illinois and Rhineland, Missouri were completely relocated to another location of higher ground.  Here is an image of part of the Mississippi River, Missouri River, and Illinois River when it is normal (top) and when it was flooded in 1993 (bottom). 


Finally, we come to the 2011 Mississippi River Flood which is looking to be even more devastating than the other two.  This flood is still going on, but the information that we know of right now is pretty incredible.  This flood is being called a 500-year flood for the Mississippi River.  Because of the fact that it is ongoing, a summary can't really be made for it yet.  One fact that can be stated is the damages which are estimated to range between $2-4 billion.  The damages right now show that this flood is not as bad as the Great Flood of 1993, but this flood isn't over with yet.  Thousands of homes have already been submerged with water stretching from Missouri and Illinois to Louisiana.  The image below is sediments from the Mississippi River flowing into Lake Pontchartrain.
 

So now we go back to the original question, which flood was worse?  In damages, right now it would be the Great Flood of 1993 given today's dollar value.  The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 would round up to be about $4.9 billion and the Great Flood of 1993 would round up to about $7.6 billion for today's dollar value.  In death tolls, it would be The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 with 246 deaths.  In flooded coverage, that's hard to tell because it could be the Great Flood of 1993 or the 2011 Mississippi River Flood since the flood that is going on right now isn't done and still getting rain to add on to it.

What are the differences?  Two main words, knowledge and technology.  As mentioned earlier, the Morganza Spillway was developed after the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 to prevent a flooding of the Mississippi River to be 80 miles wide.  It has only be opened twice, once in 1973 and right now in 2011, which is why the Mississippi River is maintaining an appoximate width of 3 miles wide.