Two years after the Flood of 1993, another big flood hit the Midwest. This time, high water slid harmlessly over grassy fields where houses and trailer parks once stood.
Thousands of past flood victims in St. Charles County, Arnold and other communities were gone. They had taken government buyouts and moved to higher ground.
Beaufort C. "Buck" Katt, deputy director of the Missouri State Emergency Management Agency, likes to call the flood buyout program "the government program that worked."
"We've moved people out of harm's way," he said.
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Nationwide, the federal government has spent $1 billion to move about 25,000 homes and businesses out of flood zones. After the '93 flood, the federal government spent $30 million to buy out 4,738 properties in Missouri and $26.3 million to buy out 3,040 properties in Illinois.
The program permanently removes buildings subject to repeated damage, lessening the need for future flood insurance claims and disaster aid. The land must be set aside as open space.
The federal government intends to continue the program, but the Bush administration wants to convert the money into competitive grants for buyouts before disaster strikes. Versions of the budget in Congress would leave about half of the money in post-disaster buyouts.
"Shouldn't we do something to save lives and reduce the cost of a disaster beforehand?" said Anthony Lowe, director of the mitigation division of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "People have become accustomed to waiting for a disaster to respond."
The Association for State Floodplain Managers opposes any reduction in post-disaster money, saying that people don't want to think about flood buyouts while the sun is shining. A flooded homeowner, on the other hand, is more likely to be receptive to the idea after shoveling mud and throwing out soggy heirlooms.
Katt said Missouri's buyout program succeeded because it moved quickly after the flood to give property owners an alternative to rebuilding in the same place.
St. Charles County, which had the most flooded buildings in the state in '93, bought out 875 properties after the flood. A former mobile home park near the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers was converted into a new county park.
St. Charles County Planning Director Steve Lauer said the buyout program has dramatically reduced the number of repeatedly flooded properties in the county.
South of St. Louis, Arnold was one of the first cities to join FEMA's mitigation program. In the past 20 years, Arnold has removed 600 homes from its flood plain, which sits at the confluence of the Meramec and Mississippi rivers.
Arnold now has less than a dozen properties left in the flood plain, City Manager John Brazeal said.
"We used to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars per event for flood fighting. On top of that, there was massive disbursement of flood insurance proceeds for property damage," he said. Now, "by not having to make a flood response, we're not distracted by the flood itself, and that's a big benefit to the community."
"I would have to say that buyouts were ultimately the right choice for Arnold," Brazeal said. "When the next big one comes, the effects are minimized."
Reporter Sara Shipley:
E-mail: sshipley@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-340-8215
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