Should have seen it in the summer of 1985 in St. Louis - looked like you could walk across it and keep your head above water while doing so. Too shallow for barge traffic for over a month. 8 years later in 1993 was another story.

I used to visit a sporting goods venue in Cape Girardeau. The back side of their building faced the floodwall in old downtown. In '93 you could look out the window from the second floor of their store and see the water was maybe 2' below the top of the wall. I helped sandbag in Ste. Geneveive that summer too - water as far as the eye could see. Here's the irony...

With all the flooding of the Mississippi River in Missouri and Illinois, you'd think that there was exessive rainfall that year. There was - but it was hundreds of miles to the north. Southern MO and IL were suffering from a bad drought that devastated crops that year.

And there's been so much development activity in floodplainss since, that when the next flood occurs it will be even more financially devastating than the last time.

If you ain't into that, we don't give a damn

A country boy can survive

Is that from Godspeed you black emperor reference