Scientists warn of potential flooding disasters

[sasha031]

ST. LOUIS - Many communities are at risk of flooding disasters like the one triggered by Hurricane Katrina last year because of the nation's failure to shore up its defenses of vulnerable flood plains, a group of experts who gathered in downtown St. Louis warned on Saturday.Nicholas Pinter, a geologist at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, said many parallels exist between the Midwest's Great Flood of 1993 and the rising waters spawned by Katrina, including the "systematic underestimation of hazard levels."And he pointed out the well-chronicled level of new construction in parts of the St. Louis metropolitan area that were submerged in the `93 flooding. Through last spring, he said, the value of that new development stood at $2.2 billion.

So if you want to look at what probably, unfortunately, will happen in New Orleans in the next 10 years, look to what has happened in St. Louis during the last 10 years," Pinter said.Some panelists who will take part in a discussion Sunday on rivers, flood plains and flood hazards met with reporters Saturday at America's Center. It is part of the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting.Katrina's blow to the Gulf Coast last year would have been "far less severe" had the government heeded the major lessons learned after the Midwest's flooding in 1993, said retired Brig. Gen. Gerald Galloway, who headed the presidential task force that studied the flooding.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/nation/13907644.htm

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. A lot of folks don't realize that flooding

doesn't just happen along the coasts. I remember the flood of '93 and also saw historical films about the Flood of 1936, which destroyed Shawneetown IL and backed up floodwaters 20 miles up tributaries to the Ohio. Couple this with the Big Quake along the New Madrid Fault, which is due by 2012, we could have yet another terrible disaster awaiting us in our heartland.