i can almost guarantee you that is exactly what will happen...btw, 'federal money' is taxpayer money, and as long as politicians can shift the moral hazard cost onto taxpayers under the guise of redevelopment, we will continue to see the same 'bigger better levees' constructed to withstand the next 100 year flood, until it happens again of course...
i saw it firsthand in my area in 1993, long article but worth a read...i'll just paste the first page
rftstl.com
After the Deluge
Since the Flood of 93, Chesterfield boosters have used millions in public money to raise a levee and turn the bottomlands into a boomtown. But betting against the river is risky business.
By C.D. Stelzer
Published: Wednesday, November 15, 2000
Jennifer Silverberg
"We need to use the free-market system down there rather than government subsidies," says former Chesterfield Councilman Allan Sheppard.
Jay Fram
More than $11 million in TIF funds has been spent by Chesterfield to build the Boone's Crossing interchange, which provides shoppers access to Chesterfield Commons.
Jay Fram
It may have been the burrowing of moles that caused the Monarch-Chesterfield Levee to collapse in 1993, or the roots of a large tree. Nobody really knows for sure.
Jennifer Silverberg
Mayor Nancy Greenwood: "[People building in the floodplain] feel confident.... But there are no guarantees in life that I know of."
Old-timers still call it Gumbo. It's a place where water and land mingle. The mingling yields the thick, dark muck that gave the place its name. After a hard rain, ponds form out on the flats, and even when the sun is beating down on the parched earth, groundwater can be found not far below the surface. Silt from the Missouri River runs deep here, up to 95 feet. It was the rich alluvial deposits that first drew German settlers to the area in the late 19th century. They cleared the bottoms of cottonwoods and sycamores and planted their crops. After World War II, farmers organized a levee district to protect their fields from the constant threat of floods.
The village of Gumbo, at the crossroads of what are now Chesterfield Airport and Long roads, never consisted of much more than a roadhouse and a general store. By the early 1960s, a few small businesses had sprouted up in the vicinity. The state widened Highway 40 to four lanes, and St. Louis County built a jail and bought the nearby airport. Even with subsequent improvements to the levee, however, much of the valley remained rural because it was vulnerable to periodic flooding.
In contrast, thousands of acres on top of the hill to the east have been devoured by subdivisions, shopping centers and office parks over the last 30 years. In 1988, Gumbo itself became part of the sprawling new city of Chesterfield, a municipality that viewed the area as fertile ground for commercial growth. But in the summer of 1993, before the town's civic and business leaders could exploit their newly acquired holdings, disaster struck.
Floodwaters from the Missouri River punched an 1,800-foot hole in the Monarch-Chesterfield Levee. Within hours, 4,400 acres had been swallowed up. When the river finally crested, days later, water had spread across the floodplain, up to 10 feet deep, engulfing Highway 40 and Spirit of St. Louis Airport. Damage estimates ranged from $250 million to more than $500 million.
The roiling waters have long since receded into memory, and traces of the devastation have disappeared, replaced by a surreal landscape.
Nowadays, traffic on the highway can back up for almost five miles, from the Missouri River to the foot of the hill below Chesterfield Mall. The slow pace allows drivers to examine their options. They can seek a respite at the new Hilton Garden Inn or shop till they drop at Chesterfield Commons, where Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, Best Buy, Lowe's Home Improvement Center and several other big-box stores squat on the south side of the highway like a carnival midway.
In the past three years, business has boomed in Gumbo. Besides the Commons, there's Chesterfield Corporate Park, Chesterfield Town Centre and a slew of other projects in the offing. As a consequence, property that couldn't be given away in the wake of the Flood of '93 now commands a premium price.
Turning a floodplain into a commercial bonanza does not come without great cost. In this case, $72.5 million in tax money has been dedicated to the effort by Chesterfield. The city is also diligently working to have the federal government provide as much as $58 million for the task. Backers of this grand scheme include local politicians and businessmen, who shrewdly realized that rebuilding the levee at public expense was integral to the success of their venture.
In addition to the use of public money to support private enterprise, there are a couple of other questionable aspects to this monumental effort. For one, state and federal regulatory officials warn there is no guarantee that the Missouri River won't flood the area again, even with the beefed-up levee. If the levee does hold up, they say, it will only push the floodwaters elsewhere, most likely across the river to St. Charles County.
None of Chesterfield's business and civic leaders seriously considered where floodwaters would go; they're more concerned about flooding dampening the valley's economic joyride. With so much money at stake, they never thought twice about defying nature.
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