Heavy rains began to fall on Kansas and Missouri in May and June 1951. In May, rainfall amounts were generally 200% of normal in Kansas, 300% of normal in June and 400% of normal in July. The heaviest rains began falling on July 9th. Some areas picked up as much as 19 inches of rain during the three day period between the 9th and 11th. The heavy rainfalls led to rising stages on the Kansas, Osage, Neosho, Verdigris and Missouri Rivers in June. The extreme rainfalls in July sent the rivers rising to record levels.
By Thursday, July 12th, a major disaster was underway in Kansas as unprecedented flooding was occurring. Saturated dikes on the Kansas River gave way in two places in North Topeka, isolating hundreds who had ignored evacuation orders, including hundreds of businessmen stranded downtown. The city was flooded to a depth of six feet across 200 blocks.
Thirty miles downstream, in Manhattan, the home of Kansas State University, floodwaters poured through two levee breaks, inundating half of the town. In North Lawrence, floodwaters reached a depth of 15 feet. The river now spread to a width of one mile. Even as the radio reports detailed the destruction underway in Kansas, the rivers were still rising. It would begin cresting on the 13th. In Topeka, it crested at 40.8 feet, for 1.48 feet above flood stage. In Manhattan, it crested at 33/4 feet, or 15.4 feet above flood stage.
At Cedar Point, Kansas, the crack Santa Fe rail streamliner El Capitan and its 250 passengers were stranded by the rising waters. It had been stuck there for 24 hours.
Downstream, efforts to sandbag levees in Kansas City were frantic. Sirens began to wail a sorrowful warning as the Kaw River began to rise, lapping at the top of the levees. Residents in the industrial district of Armourdale trudged out, carrying as many of their belongings as they could. The Kansas City Airport would be flooded, including a huge TWA facility, prompting local officials to build a new airport, which is today’s Kansas City International.
Friday the 13th would be the unluckiest day in the state’s history. Over one million acres of the state was underwater. Not a single major highway was open across the entire state. 27,000 people were already homeless. The flooding would be the worst disaster in Kansas history, with over $7 billion in damage in today’s dollars. A total of 28 people lost their lives.
Flood control structures would limit the damage in the 1993 flood.
