Development and Application of a Spatial Database
for Emergency Management Operations
1993 Midwest Flood
JOYCE A. NAGLE, ELKE S. OCHS,
ANDREW J. BRUZEWICZ AND HARLAN L. MCKIM
Table 1. Flood and crest stage at various lo-
INTRODUCTION
cations along the Mississippi, Missouri and
Des Moines rivers.
The spring and summer of 1993 brought ap-
proximately 200% of average rainfall to the Upper
Crest
Flood stage
Crest stage
Mississippi River basin. The resulting floods
City
date
(ft)
(m)
(ft)
(m)
caused an estimated .4 billion in damage, affect-
Mississippi River
ing about 35,000 homes and 13.9 million acres.
St. Paul
26 June
14
4.3
19.2
5.85
Eight states had over 50% of their counties de-
Prairie du Chien 30 June
16
4.9
21.9
6.66
Dubuque
6 July
17
5.2
22.7
6.92
clared Federal disasters. President Clinton de-
Davenport
9 July
15
4.6
22.6
6.89
clared more than 200 counties Federal disaster ar-
Keokuk
10 July
16
4.9
27.2
8.29
eas, including all 99 counties of Iowa. The Missis-
Quincy
13 July
17
5.2
32.2
9.81
sippi and Missouri rivers were closed to river traf-
Hannibal
18 July
16
4.9
31.8
9.69
fic and all forms of transportation were disrupted
St. Louis
19 July
30
9.1
46.0
14.02
1 Aug
30
9.1
49.5
15.09
throughout the region.
Chester
5 Aug
27
8.2
48.0
14.63
During natural and man-made emergencies,
such as the 1993 Midwest flood, spatial databases
Missouri River
Nebraska City
14 July
18
5.5
23.5
7.16
must be rapidly developed to support response
St. Joseph
26 July
17
5.2
32.6
9.94
and recovery efforts. Digital data for the database,
Kansas City
16 July
32
9.8
36.8
11.22
available from a variety of sources, can provide
Boonville
30 July
21
6.4
37.1
11.31
timely and detailed information over large areas
Hermann
1 Aug
21
6.4
36.1
11.00
for measuring and monitoring environmental
Des Moines River
parameters on land or water. Multiband imaging
Estherville
30 June
7
2.1
15.3
4.66
data from airplanes and satellites can be integrat-
Des Moines
11 July
23
7.0
34.3
10.65
ed into the spatial database, as can U.S. Census Bu-
reau data for monitoring damage to transportation
By agreement with the Operations Directorate,
routes.
the Remote Sensing/GIS Center (RSGISC) is point
The large size of the flooded area made re-
of contact for the Emergency Operations Center
sponse difficult. In addition, owing to the distribu-
(EOC) and the Readiness Branch at the U.S. Army
tion of the rainfall, the Mississippi River was af-
Corps of Engineers Headquarters (HQUSACE).
fected first and then the Missouri River. Multiple
This agreement assigns responsibility to the RS-
crests caused record flooding at many locations.
GISC for all remote sensing and GIS initiatives
Table 1 shows flood and crest stages along the Mis-
during natural and man-induced disasters that
sissippi, Missouri and Des Moines rivers.
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