In the spring of 1993 U.S. weather forecasters began to worry about waves of storms in the center of the country. The mid western states were receiving more than twice as much rain as usual. Nine states received thirty inches of rain in a six-month pe- riod, causing the Mississippi River to rise. And the storms and rain just kept coming. Paul Douglas, a meteorologist, told a tele- vision interviewer, "Not only was there river flooding, there was flash flooding, w here farmers' fields turned into ponds and then lakes. Literally, meteorologists referred to Iowa as the sixth Great Lake for about a six-week stretch. There's no way the ground can absorb that volume of water. It had to run off in streams and rivers. And the result was the worst flooding our nation has ever seen."1

The...