The Great Flood of 1993 (Kansas City)

The Great Flood of 1993 was a months-long Midwest disaster on the upper Mississippi and Missouri systems. In Kansas City, its signature moment is July 27, 1993, when the Missouri River crested at about 48.9 feet — 2.7 feet above the previous record set in the 1951 Flood — and rose to within inches of overtopping the levees protecting the Central Industrial District and what is now Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport.¹² Unlike 1951, those levees held; the city’s industrial bottoms were not destroyed, but the near-miss and the summer-long high water define modern flood memory between 1951 and today.

Summary

Basin-wide, the 1993 flood is ranked among the costliest U.S. floods of the modern era, with published national ranges of roughly 38–50 deaths and $12–16 billion in damage and 92 locations setting new record crests.³¹ This page is the Kansas City node, not a full Midwest monograph.

At Kansas City the Missouri River’s July 27 crest of 48.9 ft broke the 1951 mark of 46.2 ft by 2.7 ft (NWS Northwest River Forecast Center summary table).¹ Flatland’s thirtieth-anniversary reconstruction, drawing on Corps and local witnesses, states that floodwater came within inches of overtopping the levee at the downtown airport / Central Industrial District — and that the levees did not top.²

Background

After 1951

The federal and local flood-control system built after the 1951 Flood — levees, reservoirs, and channel work documented on kansas-city-flood-control — is the reason 1993 is remembered in Kansas City as a near catastrophe rather than a second Black Friday. The Kaw–Missouri confluence still concentrates risk at the West Bottoms and the downtown airport peninsula.

The wet Midwest summer

Persistent heavy rain across the upper Midwest through June–August 1993 drove record stages on both the Missouri and Mississippi. The St. Louis crest (Mississippi) of about 49.6 ft on August 1 is the basin’s other headline figure.³

Kansas City chronology (selected)

Date (1993)	Event
June–July	Sustained high water; regional evacuations and levee fights
July 12	Missouri River floodwaters inundate Hardin Cemetery (Ray County / Hardin, MO area), displacing hundreds of graves — a stark regional image of the flood’s reach2
July 27	Missouri River crest at Kansas City ~48.9 ft; CID / downtown-airport levees hold within inches of overtopping12

Immediate aftermath and long-term significance

• Proof of the post-1951 levee system — held under a higher crest than 1951 at the KC gauge.²¹
• National flood policy — 1993 drove major changes in federal floodplain management and buyout programs (basin-wide; not KC-specific in this draft).
• Memory — anniversary photography of Southwest Boulevard, the Kaw–Missouri confluence, and near-overtopping scenes remains part of local documentary history.

Relation to other vault flood pages

Event	Role
great-flood-1844	Nineteenth-century baseline
1903-flood	First modern industrial bottoms flood
1951-flood	Reference disaster; prior KC crest record
1977-plaza-flood / 2017-plaza-flood	Brush Creek / Plaza flash floods (different mechanism)
1993	Record Missouri crest; levees hold

Sources

See also

• 1951-flood
• 1903-flood
• missouri-river
• kansas-city-flood-control
• wheeler-downtown-airport
• Wiki

Footnotes

1. NOAA / NWRFC — “The Great USA Flood of 1993” (OH-2 paper) — asserts: Missouri River at Kansas City crested 48.9 ft July 27, 2.7 ft above 1951 record; 92 locations set new record crests; KC gauge table 1951 = 46.2 ft / 1993 = 48.9 ft. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

2. Flatland KC — “Kansas City’s Cruel Summer: The Flood of 1993” (June 29, 2023) — asserts: July 27 crest day; water within inches of overtopping CID / downtown airport levees; levees did not top; Hardin Cemetery July 12 grave displacement (793 gravesites in that telling). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

3. Wikipedia — “Great Flood of 1993.” — asserts: national fatality range ~38–50; damage $12–16B; St. Louis Mississippi crest ~49.6 ft Aug 1; basin chronology context. ↩ ↩²