Myth:
The levee at Elwood was deliberately destroyed in order to lessen the flood’s impact on St. Joseph.
After the levee at Elwood, Kansas, failed, rumors began spreading around the region with people reporting that they had heard explosives that night and that it had been broken in order to safeguard St. Joseph. There has never been any evidence that the levee was deliberately breached nor has anyone ever been charged for the crime.
Breaking a levee is a crime. James Scott was convicted for causing a catastrophe for breaching the West Quincy levee in the area around Quincy, Illinois, and Hannibal, Missouri, . He is currently serving 20 years to life in the state penitentiary in Jefferson City.
Myth:
It is possible for humans to control floods and the flood of ’93 was caused by the actions of the Army Corps of Engineers.
The actions of the Army Corps of Engineers on the Missouri River during the 20th century can be seen as part of an ongoing human attempt to control Mother Nature. During the Flood of 1993, people suggested that decisions made by the Corps to preserve areas upstream resulted in the catastrophic flooding downstream. However, the ground across the entire Midwest was so saturated in 1993, there was simply no place for water to go. Floods are natural events, but human interventions to straighten and channelize the river for navigation have changed natural flood patterns making modern flood waters raise and lower more quickly.
Myth:
The flood of ’93 was a “500 Year Flood.”
This is true, but the statement doesn’t mean what we often perceive it to mean. A 500 Year Flood is not a flood that happens only once every 500 years, rather it is a flood that has a 1 in 500 chance of happening in any given year.
Myth:
Floods are a destructive force.
Floods certainly have the potential to be incredibly destructive. The power of water is truly awe-inspiring. Flood waters also carry contaminants as they pick up whatever is in the region over which they flow: substances such as oil and pesticides are frequently found in high concentrations in flood waters.
However, floods are also constructive forces. The rich farmland of the river bottom areas is the direct result of periodic flooding.
Myth:
Floods are an equal-opportunity threat, making no distinction between rich and poor.
“A generalized statement about risk applied to the 1993 flood: the riskiest thing to be was poor. Flooded neighborhoods tended to be lower income, with a high percentage of rental properties, generally housing more elderly residents, more young families, and more people on assistance. Homes in the floodplain often had market values of less than $25,000. Thus the Great Flood of 1993, widely regarded as the third most costly domestic disaster in U.S. history, affected certain portions of the population much more severely than others. Those who were among the least able to cope economically often bore the largest social costs.”
[Lee Wilkins, “Living with the Flood: Human and Governmental Responses to Real and Symbolic Risk,” in The Great Flood of 1993: Causes, Impacts, and Responses, ed. Stanley A. Chagnon]