ST. LOUIS _ In recent years, major floods have become a nearly annual scourge around the U.S. and in the St. Louis region, where the Mississippi River has soared to four of its nine highest recorded levels within the past decade _ in 2013, 2016, 2017 and 2019.
So far, this year's flood-risk outlook appears safer for main regional waterways, but experts warn that any major episode in 2020 could pose a far greater threat, if layered on top of an ongoing pandemic.
"That would be just a terrible combination of events," said David Stokes, head of the Great Rivers Habitat Alliance, a nonprofit group focused on river management issues. "It would be a really difficult thing to manage this year if it happened, and I pray that it doesn't."
