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The Great Flood of 1993 71 ISSN 1052-7524 Proceedings of the Transportation Research Forum Volume 7 1993 35th TRF Annual Forum New York, New York October 14-16, 1993 The Great Flood of 1993 71 The Great Flood of 19931 Bob O'Neill, Moderator Vice President American Waterways Operators I am Bob O'Neill, Vice President of the ty of Transportation and Logistics, as American Waterways Operators and well as an Associate Member of the Director of the American Waterway Transportation Research Board and of Shipyard Conference, the national trade the American Association of Railroad association for small and medium-sized Superintendents. shipyards. Mr. Banks recently participated in a We have the task of describing and number of intermodal and port access estimating the amount ofdamage caused assessments. He is a keen observer of by the flooding in the Midwest. Robert significant trade and transportation Banks will discuss the rail mode of technical trends. transportation. Michael Bronzini will give us a view of the impact on high- Dr. Bronzini has been conducting ways and perhaps some rail coverage as research on transportation systems since well. I'll give an overview of the impact 1970, and his current research interests on waterborne transportation and inland include inland waterways, transportation shipyards. cost and performance models, network analysis, and hazardous material trans- Bob Banks is President of R.L. Banks & portation. Associates, a Washington, D.C. firm of transportation engineers and economists. He is presently Director ofthe Center for Transportation Analysis at the Oakridge Until establishing his own firm about 38 National Laboratory in Oakridge, Ten- years ago, Bob was an economist with nessee. The Center conducts research in the Civil Aeronautics Board and a traffic defense transportation systems,highway manager for the New York Central and intermodal planning policy, and Railroad. transportation energy policy. He is also adjunct professor of civil engineering at Mr. Banks is the author of numerous the University of Tennessee. technical studies on transportation economics and has served as a transpor- From 1986 to 1990, Dr. Bronzini was tation policy advisor to several govern- professor and head of civil engineering ment entities, both in the United States at Penn State University. Dr. Bronzini and Canada. went to Penn State from the University of Tennessee, where he was Director of He is a member of the American Econo- the Transportation Center and Professor mic Association and the American Socie- of Civil Engineering. Dr. Bronzini holds 1 A grant from the UPS Foundation helped make this session possible. 72 Proceedings of TRF, Vol. 7, 1993 a Masters degree and a Ph.D.from Penn portions of all the other territory on this State, and a B.S. from Stanford Univer- map were also affected. sity in Civil Engineering. The flood knocked out 6,000 miles of He is a registered Professional Engineer railroad. That is 5% of the national and is the member of the Transportation network. Every number I give you is Research Board, American Society of very imprecise; it is a first order of Civil Engineers, the Institute of estimation. As far as I can calculate, Transportation Engineers, and several about 6,000 miles of railroad were other societies. In 1982, he was Pres- knocked out. By knocked out, I mean it ident of the Transportation Research did not perform its normal function. It Forum. may be that 750 miles were actuallY under water. But, 6,000 miles were affected. The flood tied up the second Robert L. Banks and third largest U.S. national railroad President gateways — Kansas City and St. Louis. R.L. Banks and Associates, Inc. What the flood involved was really a This particular flood is the worst one to kick in the solar plexus to every railroad hit the railroad industry since 1913. that either parallels the Mississippi of Missouri River or crosses it. This meant In 1913, all the tributaries of the Ohio, a direct hit at all the western railroads which covered most of that state and — the Burlington Northern, Union northwestern Pennsylvania and Pacific, Santa Fe, and the Soo Line. southeastern Michigan, experienced a period of heavy flooding that cut every Milder impacts were felt on the Norfolk single railroad line. At that time, of Southern, the Southern Pacific, and the course, the northeastern industrial Kansas City Southern. Even the bastian was centered in Ohio and railroads that aren't in this territory — Pennsylvania, and the economic blow to the CSX and Conrail, whose operations the country was probably heavier than are to the east of this territory — were this one. But, it cut all the railroad badly impacted, because an enormous lines north of the Ohio River and south amount of all railroad freight in the of Lake Erie, with the exception of my United States, approximately 60-70%, is old boss, the New York Central, which interchanged at some point in its always manages somehow to stay alive movement. when everybody else kicks in. What that means in terms of a situation Anyhow,this is a once in 80-year event. like this is that a lot of freight going The first thing you might take a look at from the West Coast to the East Coast or is the extent of it. This Corps of from the West Coast to this territorY Engineers situation map as of a we're looking at and points beyond has particular date shows the territory — to be interchanged between the eastern North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and western railroads at Kansas City or Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and St. Louis, and both of those places were Missouri, which was the epicenter of the out of business. What that involved flood effects on the railroads and were some extra-ordinary reactions to presumably on everything and everybody crisis that we will see more of in a else too at one stage. The worst hit moment. I also want to spend a little states were Iowa and Missouri, but time on a point of esoteric. Some of yon The Great Flood of 1993 73 have heard of George Kennan, who used railroads, the major trunk-line rail to be Assistant Secretary of State and carriers that were already hit. whose r memoirs were published and eviewed in the papers last year. Only one of the many railroads in this territory — the Chicago & North George Kennan is the son of an Western — stayed in operation, and that econoraics professor who in 1912 wrote a was because it was above water the 131 001t, a copy of which ended up in my whole way, although only an inch or two librarY. The name of the book is The at some places like Des Moines and Iowa Alton Road. The Alton Road is a City. Of the seven parallel lines railroad that runs through this territory, traversing this territory in an east-west except that it is no longer called the direction, only the Chicago & North Alton. Road. From the time that the Western was in service throughout the b°°k was the written until the present time, whole episode — from mid-July to mid- railroad has had six different names September. and owners. the The reason is that it was last one to be built through this There were also some beneficiaries. The territory. It was excess and always runs a tough had Illinois Central is a railroad that financial time. parallel to the Mississippi in a north- south direction between Chicago and Y°11 may recall, those of you who follow New Strangely enough, this these Orleans. 'natters, that it used to be called railroad was a beneficiary. Why? the Chicago & Alton and after that it Because it was unaffected by the flood Was called the Alton Road and then it and it handled about 600 trains that Was called the Baltimore & Ohio, and would normally not go this way to get to tnii,en it was called the Gulf, Mobile & the West. Where were they headed? and then it was called the Chicago, Most of them were headed for Memphis "lissouri & Western. Today, it is called where there are some parallel lines that the Gateway Western. were unaffected by the flood. The reason I mention it is because it So, the Illinois Central got a traffic collies right through this territory and increase that it was able to handle g°es to Kansas City. It is the smallest without any significant increment to its railroad of some significance that was physical facilities. It is estimated that it af fected by the flood. handled traffic about 65% above its normal traffic levels. ,t has drawn a lot of attention because 'Lle wife of at one of its employees was That is all I am going to say about the tracted to the fact that her husband extent of the episode. Turning now to ,N.7,as going to lose his job cost. The he and she got all what this whole business media interested in it. They took impact railroads was costly. It asoMe on the tremendous photographs of how was costly, of course, on everybody in Ellis railroad was knocked out, one or this territory. This is one of the two of which I will show you later on. approaches to Kansas City after the water receded. What you have here is Also, the Iowa Interstate, which There total of is some track that is unusable. is a the remains of ltoad, the former Rock Island washout right underneath it. The track was very badly hit. But, those has been bent. Everything has to be railroads are incremental to the main fixed up.
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