The Missouri River doesn't scare John Wild. Or so he says.

Last year, Wild moved his agency, the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, or MOHELA, into a $12 million new headquarters building in Chesterfield Valley - on land that was 10 feet under water a decade ago.

While Wild says he's confident a rebuilt Monarch Levee will protect his agency's investment, he isn't taking any chances, either.

Not only does the agency have flood insurance, but Wild also has set up the building to survive a flood, with the first floor full of mostly expendable items, while the computers sit safely on upper floors.

"We put stuff we can do without on the first floor, so that if it floods, we can hose it down," says Wild, the director of MOHELA, who's also mayor of neighboring Wildwood.

Like MOHELA, many St. Louis businesses have moved into the region's vast flood plains since the Flood of '93.

And although they insist that levees and other flood control mechanisms will protect them, most are taking extra precautions that businesses didn't even consider before 1993.


Still, if the Missouri River were to flood again today, the damage would be much worse than in 1993, critics of flood plain development say. That's because recent levee improvements in St. Louis County have fueled a building frenzy.

"Just look at what's happened in Chesterfield and St. Charles since '93," says Wayne Freeman, executive director of the Great Rivers Habitat Alliance. "It has the potential to be catastrophic."

Many developers, however, say they've learned from the Flood of '93 and would be much more prepared should the water rise like it did a decade ago.

Evidence of their increased preparedness can be found in Chesterfield Valley, where most businesses now have both public and private insurance. Ten years ago, it was common to have neither.

In many cases, obtaining insurance has caused companies to take other precautions. That includes crafting more flood-resistant designs, elevating the ground where they've built their projects and creating contingency plans.

Developer THF Realty built the $250 million Chesterfield Commons, a massive Chesterfield Valley shopping center that is home to a Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, Lowe's, Circuit City, Target Greatland and more.

Michael Staenberg, THF's president, says he's "absolutely convinced it will never flood again."

But that doesn't mean Staenberg has shunned insurance. In addition to federal flood insurance, THF also has flood insurance through its regular private insurance carrier.

"It's built into our whole insurance package" that THF has for all of its shopping centers, said Marian Nunn, the chief operating officer for THF Realty.

"We insure the building and our tenants insure the contents," Nunn said.

Nunn said the insurance provider doesn't break out the additional premium THF pays to cover against a flood, but she stressed that it's not a significant amount.

The FEMA program only insures up to $500,000 of damage for each building and $500,000 for contents of each building for commercial property. To cover the rest, property owners must buy private insurance.

MOHELA is a quasi-governmental group with $3.5 billion in assets that lends money for tuition and related expenses to college students. The agency moved to Chesterfield Valley from the bluffs of eastern Chesterfield in August 2002.

Wild says that between 1 and 2 percent of MOHELA's $400,000 annual insurance bill is related to protection from potential flooding.



"Nobody thought
about floods then"




Things were very different in 1993, when few Chesterfield Valley property owners had flood insurance.

"Nobody thought about floods then," said Earl Hoffman, the owner of Valley-based Surdex Corp. and the chairman of the Monarch-Chesterfield Levee District board. "We were financed through a bank, and nobody there said anything about flood insurance."

As the waters of the Missouri River were rising in mid-July 1993, property owners in the Valley began to buy federal flood insurance policies, hoping they'd beat out a five-day waiting period.

But the Missouri struck too quickly for some. Hoffman took out his policy in time, but others, such as Smoke House market owner Thom Sehnert, were left without any insurance.

"I can't even describe to you what it looked like," Sehnert says. "There was mold and mildew everywhere. The floors were all cracked, and the windows were broken."

After borrowing more than $2 million to completely rebuild, Sehnert isn't taking any chances. He's now insured through both public and private sources.

With those memories of the disaster still close at hand, Wild says, "everyone in the Valley has insurance today."

As they've moved into flood-prone areas, businesses have taken some flood prevention measures before they even began construction.

Before Gundaker Commercial Group began building its $30 million Towne Centre retail strip, the company drove 15,000 truckloads of dirt to the site, at Long and Edison Roads in the Valley.

That lifted the land high enough so that the shopping center minimized its risk of flooding from rainwater. It also dramatically reduced the insurance the company pays.

Mike Hejna, president of Gundaker Commercial, says he's even more worried about internal flooding than he is about the Missouri River.

"I think there's more of a likelihood that we'll get 4 inches of rain in four hours (than a flood of the Missouri River) and that's all we need for it to flood internally," Hejna says.

Sysco Corp., which opened a warehouse in St. Charles County's Elm Point business park in 1993, has also taken measures to prevent flooding.

To protect itself from nearby Boschert Creek, the company has built a berm around its property. As flooding from the creek has gotten worse, Sysco is now raising that berm and installing a pump system.

Since the Flood of 1993, Spirit of St. Louis Airport, at the western end of the Chesterfield Valley, also has expanded. But Richard Hrabko, the airport's executive director, says the airport is insured.

What will happen to the county-owned property if it floods again?

Says Hrabko: "We'll just build again."



Reporter Eric Heisler:
E-mail: eheisler@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-340-8183