Tuesday, April 17,2001
The University Daily Kansan
Section A · Page 7
think, that the country has ever suffered from water. I am informed by General Pick that it is the worst."
The flood of 1951 came as Truman was trying to garner support for a national system of engineered reservoirs and levees to control flooding, called the Pick-Sloan plan. Large-scale flood control didn't have everyone's support. Farmers, environmentalists and some state and federal officials opposed the plan. Farmers were not eager to give up rich bottomland. The Army Corps of Engineers built Tuttle Creek reservoir north of Manhattan after years of farmer opposition. However, the '51 flood turned public opinion around—people saw modern engineering as the best solution to make sure history wouldn't be repeated.
Dale Nimz, a KU doctoral student now writing his dissertation on the Kansas River and the implications of the 1951 flood for modern flood control, said that the flood influenced federal policy that would forever change the waterways of America.
"The 1951 flood and the way key players reacted to the flood consolidated support for the Pick-Sloan plan," Nimz said.
North Lawrence as seen from above at the height of the flood of 1951. The flood crested in Lawrence on July 13 at 30.42 feet and caused nearly $100 billion dollars worth of damage statewide. Legislation for flood control in the Midwest was sparked by the flood's devastation. Photo courtesy of the Kansas Collection
Pick and William Sloan, head of the Bureau of Reclamation, both presented flood control plans to the House Flood Control Committee. The two plans were merged into the Pick-Sloan plan of 1944, which called for reservoirs and levees to be built on tributary rivers that fed into the Kansas and Missouri rivers. Truman wanted even more dams and levees, and Pick argued after the 1951 flood that the reservoir system was the only way to control flooding. Pick declared that if reservoirs had been built at Milford, Tuttle Creek and Perry, the flood could have passed Lawrence without such devastating damage.
Roger Pine remembers that when he was 11-years-old that the flood water reached the bottom of the second story window at the Teepee Junction. Pine grew up in a farm house straight east of the teepees and was forced to evacuate his home when the water became too high. Photo by Thad Allender/KANSAN
Nimz said that the government had alternatives to the reservoirs, but the '51 flood swept away opposition to the Pick-Sloan plan. Nimz said cities could have banned development on the floodplain and promoted watershed management, soil conservation and wetlands preservation. One reason this natural alternative was not popular was because railroads had built tracks on low-lying ground along rivers and industry sprang up in flood-prone areas near the railroad tracks. Nimz said that the Pick-Sloan plan reflected a cultural belief of the era that nature should be changed to suit the needs of humans, and that engineering was the best tool for preventing floods.
The flood control measures changed the nature of waterways in northeast Kansas. The Pick-Sloan plan resulted in the construction of the Perry reservoir near Lawrence and the Tuttle Creek reservoir north of Manhattan. Though not part of the original Pick-Sloan plan, Clinton reservoir was added later to control flooding of the Wakarusa River, which feeds the Kansas from the south. These lakes have changed the landscape, water collection, the functioning of the river and recreation in the area.
Building for Disaster
Geologists agree that it is inevitable — Lawrence will experience future floods of the magnitude of the flood. The only issue is whether the Pick-Sloan flood control measures will prevent the catastrophic damage experienced in 1951. Over time, the reservoirs have filled with silt and hold less floodwater than when they were constructed.
Black and his wife had just spent all their money fixing up their 13-acre spread when the flood swept through.
"We were a couple of sick kids because it hadn't been home long." Black said. "It was a mess all right."
Development continues in the floodplain. Developers want to build single-family homes near property that once was the site of Bismark Gardens — an amusement center that was completely destroyed by the flood. This spring, the City Commission approved annexation of 5 and a half acres into North Lawrence that was under water in the 1951 flood.
Dale Black lived only a stone's throw from that newly annexed property where homes are planned. Black's house at 1480 N. 1700 Road filled with almost five feet of river water and eight feet of water in his backyard picked up his hay barn and carried it away down North Street.
"There was nothing left but the concrete," Black remembers.
home long, Black said. It was a mess all right.
Black later sold the property and moved to higher
The tops of the concrete tepees at Tepee Junction emerge from the water at the intersection of highways 40 and 24 before the floodwater reached its peak. During the flood, Highway 40 was completely submerged in water. Photo courtesy of the Kansas Collection
ground on 1600 Road. Black still keeps a floodplain map that shows which areas will be hit the hardest by future flooding.
New floodplain maps are being drawn for the city because those currently in use are 10 to 20 years old. New maps may show a changing floodplain, but the regulations for where developers can build will not change. Commercial structures have to be built one foot above the regulatory floodplain elevation and residential structures must be two feet above elevation.
The regulatory floodplain elevation is the level to which water rises in a 100-year flood. A 100-year flood is a statistical probability that a flood carrying a certain volume of water will occur in a 100-year period. Land in North Lawrence that sits in the floodway or the 100-year floodplain cannot be developed, but development in the 500-year floodplain is not restricted. City planners are working on guidelines for future growth in the floodplain north of North Street.
Charles Perry, geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said that major floods have affected the Kansas River basin on a 23-year and 50-year cycle. The flood of 1903 destroyed the crop land of some farmers who were also affected in 1951. Another flood proportional to the 1951 flood swept through the area in 1844, but little scientific data was recorded.
Reservoirs and levees kept major flooding in 1993 from reaching the damage level of the '51 flood, but geoel-
ogists say a few more days of rain would have changed that. Perry said that more rain would have created a flood just as devastating. Tuttle Creek and Perry reservoirs upstream from Lawrence were at capacity and uncontrolled water flowed out their floodgates in 1993. Perry said that while the rate of flow for water was faster in the 1951 flood than in 1993, both floods carried almost the same volume of water.
A recent inventory of available drinking water in Douglas County conducted by entomologist and slowgrowth activist Larry Kipp suggested that Clinton Lake, one of the flood control reservoirs, is slitting in at a higher than expected rate. Kipp's primary concern was whether development was outstripping demand for available drinking water, because Clinton supplies much of the water for Lawrence. "If Clinton Reservoir continues to silt in at its current rate, demand could exceed supply as early as 2021," Kipp wrote in his study.
Clinton was built to provide 258,300 acre feet of flood control storage. Kipp's study shows that "an unpublished Army Corp of Engineers sediment study from 1990 and 1991 projected annual, increasing losses in
storage capacity due to siltation at approximately 300 acre feet per year."
Perry said that merciful weather conditions and the Tuttle Creek, Milford and Perry reservoirs kept the 1993 flood from devastating North Lawrence. The reservoirs hold a fixed volume of liquid, and Perry said that no amount of flood control could have kept a major flood from rolling downstream to Lawrence if more rain had fallen.
Fifty years after the great flood of '51, flood control is as relevant to Lawrence residents as when the Army Corp first began building reservoirs and levees in the Kansas River basin. Continued growth in the floodplain could mean more property damaged the next time the river leaves its banks.
Farmers say that mankind can't completely subdue a river.
"I don't think people really understand how serious that situation was," North Lawrence farmer Roger Pine said. "Mother Nature will do what she wants." — Edified by Doug Preyce
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