America’s Worst Floods: Tragedy by Water

From Pennsylvania’s devastating dam failure in 1889 to the brutal flash floods in Texas’s Hill Country in July 2025, America’s worst floods have claimed thousands of lives and reshaped infrastructure.

These events—including Hurricane Katrina, the St. Francis Dam collapse, and historic floods along the Mississippi, Ohio, and Guadalupe rivers—exposed critical vulnerabilities in engineering, emergency planning, and flood defenses.

The recent Texas disaster, where the Guadalupe River surged 35 feet in under an hour, killed over 120 people, many of them children, and underscores the urgent need for improved forecasting, warning systems, and resilient communities.