13 Times Mississippi River Floods Disrupted Life in Missouri

One of the realities of living in Missouri near the Mississippi River is that it will sometimes change the way you live your life. I've lived through my share of major flood events, but history has documented hundreds of Mississippi River floods including 13 that were among the worst for Missouri.

Here are the 13 worst Mississippi River floods that impacted Missouri since the early 1800's when these events were first recorded:

• Great Mississippi River Flood of 1844 — one of the largest floods ever recorded near St. Louis
• Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 — catastrophic flooding along the lower Mississippi system
• Great Flood of 1973 - some of the highest Mississippi River crests ever recorded
• Great Flood of 1993 — one of the costliest floods in U.S. history, heavily impacting Missouri communities along both the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers
• 2011 Mississippi River floods — produced record flooding in southeast Missouri

Major floods of the Mississippi River which affected Missouri also in 1809, 1825, 1851, 1903, 1965, 2008, 2019, and 2025.

I vividly remember three of these flooding events. The first Mississippi River flood that I was aware of was the great flood of 1973. At the time, my mother worked for a savings and loan institution in downtown Hannibal, Missouri. Flood waters overwhelmed their building and she was unable to work for at least two months until the waters receded and the building could be repaired.

When the great flood of 1993 happened, I had been working in the western part of America at the time and remember watching the start of it through cable news network broadcasts. I returned home during the middle of that era and remember having to drive large distances to find a safe place to cross from Missouri to Illinois.

These events came to mind as I drive over the Mississippi River every day and the waters have been somewhat high. That's not atypical for the Spring months, but just high enough that my mind was taken back to those many events in the past when all of our daily lives were disrupted by the mighty river near where we call home.