Geology topics
Publications and source records attributed to Loyd A. Waite.
Ten years ago, the upper Mississippi River Basin in the Midwestern United States experienced the costliest flood in the history of the United States. The flood came to be known as “ The Great Flood of 1993.”
A field inspection methodology, a scour- susceptibility ranking procedure, and a data base management system were developed for the Missouri Highway and Transportation Department to use for scour inspection and assessment at bridges throughout the State. Because scour can cause bridge failure, federal statute mandates that the approximately 4,700 state-owned bridges over water be assessed for scour-related problems. The Missouri Scour Assessment Field Form was developed so that bridge inspectors from the Missouri Highway and Transportation Department could collect data at a bridge site quickly and thoroughly. The arrangement of the form allows inspectors to collect specific quantitative data at each area with a minimum of wasted steps. The Missouri Bridge Scour data base was developed to store and manipulate scour data collected during field inspections. Scour data in the data base can be updated, printed, and tabulated with other records using several criteria. A potential scour index and an observed scour index are calculated within the data base for each bridge site. The data base also may have multiple entries for a single site, providing versatility whereby recent inspections may be compared with earlier inspections to document long-term trends and changes.
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Four deaths, two persons seriously injured, and property damage estimated at $846,500 resulted from a flood that struck the village of Hillsboro, N. Mex. during the early morning hours of September 3, 1972. Hillsboro is situated at the confluence of Percha Creek and its main tributary, North Percha Creek. Heavy rainfall in the drainage basin upstream from Hillsboro occurred during the night of September 2-3. Peak discharge computed by slope-area measurements indicated that Percha Creek carried a maximum flow of 12,200 cubic feet per second (346 cubic meters per second) and that North Percha Creek carried a flow of 20,900 cubic feet per second (592 cubic meters per second) at points just upstream from Hillsboro. Flood-control facilities in Hillsboro consisting of levees on the south bank of Percha Creek failed and flood waters reached depths of 6 feet (1.8 meters) in Hillsboro. Hillsboro was declared a disaster area by Governor Bruce King and by President Richard Nixon.
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