In this three-part series, we explore three flooding events from recent years to see what we can learn about the damage they caused, how flood risks are rising, how local and federal officials responded, and how communities are building flood resilience in their wake.

From March through December of 2019, the Missouri, Mississippi, and Arkansas Rivers and their tributaries flooded millions of homes across the Midwest. The record-breaking winter and spring runoff levels were comparable to the Great Flood of 1927, one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history.

While the heaviest of the floodwaters came in early spring, the devastation lasted through late fall as subsequent rounds of gradual flooding compounded existing damage. As The New York Times reported, satellite data from the first half of the year shows the full scope of the event, which incrementally grew to an astonishing magnitude. 

One year later, Midwestern states are working hard to strengthen flood-resistant infrastructure and ensure their residents are prepared and have the financial and structural protection they need for future floods. Here’s what we can learn about flood resilience from the 2019 Midwestern floods, including a close look at how Nebraska is moving forward today

The Flood Damage: Floodwaters Submerge Land from the Dakotas Down to Missouri

An estimated 14 million people were impacted by the floods of 2019. The destruction spanned homes, businesses, roads, sewage facilities, and thousands of acres of farmland. The property-level flood damage totaled $6.2 billion, with roughly $1.6 billion in Iowa and $1.3 billion in Nebraska.

The farmland flooding was particularly catastrophic: crops were ruined and livestock was killed, leaving a grim financial outlook for thousands of farmers. The waters of the Mississippi also carried chemical fertilizers from heartland farms, lawns, and other sources that contributed to a “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico, an area with too little oxygen for fish and other marine life to survive.

All of this flooding unfolded slowly fueled by smaller snowmelt and rainfall events. The back-to-back, months-long flooding left little time for recovery until the last of the floods along the Missouri River were declared over in December.

The Flood Risk: The Silent Threat of Inland Flooding

In March last year, the NOAA warned that nearly 200 million people were at risk for flooding in their communities. That’s about 60 percent of the entire U.S. population.

Inland flooding is one of several non-hurricane weather events that can cause substantial damage to communities across the central U.S. While these communities certainly aren’t unfamiliar with flooding, they may underestimate their flood risk for a few reasons:

• Extreme inland flooding events are rare enough that they aren’t top of mind for residents of these areas.
• Homeowners may mistakenly believe that their homeowner’s insurance covers flood damage, which isn’t true. 
• Homeowners might think their property is far enough away from a body of water to avoid flooding, which also isn’t necessarily true.
• Residents of flood-prone communities may have seen past floods mitigated by drainage systems like dams or levees, but many of these failed in 2019.

And that risk may be increasing: climate change is an accelerating factor of inland flood patterns. Rising temperatures intensify the Earth’s water cycle, which means more rain and more frequent rain in high-precipitation climates. The compounding damage of the floods of 2019 may not be a once-in-a-century occurrence any longer. 

Live in a non-coastal area and not sure about your flood risk? Check your risk now.

The Response: A Collaboration of Local, State, and National Initiatives

The Midwestern states impacted by last year’s floods have a number of recovery efforts underway that are aimed at bolstering future mitigation, as Nebraskan local officials explain.

John Winkler, General Manager of the Papio-Missouri River Natural Resources District in Nebraska, says that buyout programs have provided major relief.

“For those areas that are repeatedly damaged by floods, the [Natural Resources] District, in coordination with FEMA, offers floodplain buyout programs for those property owners in order to give them the opportunity to be removed from harm’s way.”

And the Midwestern states are working together to build future flood resistance. Jesse Bradley, Interim Director of the NeDNR, writes:

“The State of Nebraska is currently working with states of Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri to identify flooding areas along the lower Missouri River through a Planning Assistance to States study in conjunction with the USACE… to identify key areas of concern and system-level mitigation strategies aimed at reducing future flood risks.”

A Proactive Approach that Began before the 2019 Midwestern Floods

It’s worth noting that FEMA flood maps were already changing to better reflect risk before last year’s flood, according to Katie Ringland, State NFIP Coordinator and Floodplain Management Chief at Nebraska’s Department of Natural Resources (NeDNR).

Ringland also notes that when the flooding began last March, Nebraska partnered with other organizations to improve flood mapping: “NeDNR started working with several agencies to collect high water marks in the flooded areas. In all, NeDNR and our partners, USGS, USACE, NRCS, Lower Loup NRD and several local communities, collected more than 700 [high water] marks.”