Over the years, the St. Charles Historic District has received many floods due to rising water levels from the Missouri River. Major floods have been observed three times, in 1993, 2011 and 2019, and smaller flooding has occurred countless times. As such, these floods have left some people fearful about visiting due to word of mouth, news coverage, etc. But these floods do not cause as much harm as many may think.
“Back in 93’ during that flood, that was the one and only time that it was really a problem, we’ve seen the river breach the bed and come up into the park quite a number of times, almost even to the roadway, but that was fairly typical after some heavy rains but that never really impacted Magpie’s since mainstreet sits up a little bit higher,” Maggie Crane, former employee and daughter of the owner of Magpie’s Cafe on St. Charles’ Main Street said.
The rising water, even at one of its highest elevations did not even make it onto the streets, it keeps closer to the river bed. However, though these floods may not impact some businesses physically, it has impacted them in other ways.
“When the news talks about flooding on the Missouri River and St. Charles is flooded, then people and visitors around the area think, uh oh, everybody’s flooded, but it’s not an issue of buildings being flooded or an impact like that, it’s really just an issue of people think we’re under water, although we’re not,” Elizabeth Phelps, who is in charge of media at the foundry art centere said.
Currently, there seems to be not enough danger to warrant a lot of the press that arises from the flooding, as many buildings down in old Historic St. Charles seems to be far less concerned than your average visitor is. But this does not mean that it couldn’t change in the future. Even though there hasn’t been a devastating flood observed there yet, does not mean it will stay that way forever.
“I don’t think either of us will see it in our lifetimes, that one in 93’ they called it a 500 year flood, meaning it’s that rare, and only happens every 500 years,” Crane said. “Now I will say with climate change, who knows, there’s a lot of things happening at an accelerated rate that we haven’t seen before. That’s something I’d be a bit concerned about.”
