Midwest flooding exposes the cost of river-basin disaster policy

Historic flooding along the Missouri, Arkansas and Mississippi River basins made 2019’s inland flooding the year’s dominant disaster cost. NOAA reported that the combined cost of Missouri, Arkansas and Mississippi River flooding reached about $20 billion, nearly half the total cost of all 2019 billion-dollar disasters. The Trump administration approved disaster declarations across affected states, while the damage exposed long-term weaknesses in levees, farms, barge traffic and floodplain development.