Missouri faces above-average flood risk this spring

Missouri is at above-average risk for flooding this spring because the soil is still saturated from last spring’s flooding, according to the National Weather Service. About 1.2 million acres of Missouri farmland was damaged by flooding in 2019.

Missouri Agriculture Director Chris Chinn says the Governor’s Flood Advisory Task Force has received a glimmer of good news from the Army Corps of Engineers about the potential for spring flooding.

“The reservoirs up north right now have more storage capacity than they did last year… Last year at this time, we had a really deep freeze in the ground. Right now we don’t have that, so we’re not going into the spring in the exact same situations that we were last year.So that’s a positive piece of information that we were really glad to hear.”

But Chinn went on to say a lot of farm ground is still unprotected.

“We do have a lot of levees right now that have not been able to be repaired because the water simply did not recede.”

The Missouri Department of Agriculture, Missouri Farm Bureau, DNR and the Coalition to Protect the Missouri River are hosting meetings in northwest Missouri March 2nd and 3rd for farmers to meet with state and federal emergency management officials and the USDA’s RMA, FSA and NRCS agencies to ask questions and share their concerns.