While the Great Flood of 1993 was greater in continental terms , in local Iowa terms , the June , 2008 Midwest floods were considerably worse . Lessons learned in 1993 , however , helped prevent or otherwise ameliorate damage , extensive as it was ; one example is how the city of Des Moines raised its levee around its domestic water and sewage treatment plants . The extent of flooding in 2008 was probably less than during the Flood of 1851 , but it is difficult to compare impacts of the two floods because of changes in population , economy , and land use . A study performed by Mark Burton at the University of Tennessee and Michael J. Hicks at Ball State University was based on post 1993 flood data . However , the 2008 floods damaged key infrastructure outside of the model ( e.g. the University of Iowa library ) due both to changes in population and flood protection measures . However , the Burton & Hicks study did identify crop damages at roughly $ 3 billion , which turned out to be very close to the actual damages
Great Flood of 1993
Great Flood of 1993
Iowa flood of 2008