St. Louis experienced historic flooding last week. The following Monday, the city reached the 29th anniversary of the floods of 1993 in the area. KMOX took a look back of its coverage 29 years ago.
Roger Brand, KMOX breaking news and traffic reporter, was on the scene back in '93 covering the floods live. He joined Total Information AM to talk about his experience.
"The urgency that Saturday morning, when our news director got a hold of me and said, 'Hey, get out there and get up and get going, because we got problems out in the Chesterfield Valley when that thing broke overnight.' And boy, that it was just amazing," Brand said.
He said while last week's floods were intense, the floods 29 years ago were a different situation.
"Those floods of '93 were rivers that were rising from other places that were sending that flow downstream," he said. "So you know, we knew there was flooding coming, but when that levee broke, it just made it a catastrophe."
Brand said from an overhead vantage point, he remembers that it looked like he was just flying over a lake because there was so much water — even the Arch got partially submerged. News stations from all over the world were in St. Louis covering the floods.
"We had TV crews from Mexico, from Japan, from Germany and we took them up, you know, when they take a tour around the metro area," he said. "It was like a two hour ride to get out to these areas. I mean, the flooding was so extensive, such a widespread area. It was just really amazing. I mean, there's obviously I haven't seen anything like it since."
Listen to more of Roger Brand's reflections on the '93 floods:
