Cardiac tamponade: The Great Flood of

The Great Flood of 1993Uniquely extreme weather and hydrologic conditions led to the flood of 1993 . The stage was set in 1992 with a wet fall which resulted in above normal soil moisture and reservoir levels in the Missouri and Upper Mississippi River basins. The Great Flood of 1993 was wide spread covering nine states and 400,000 square miles, and lasting at some locations for nearly 200 days ... This rainfall produced record flooding in highly urbanized northern Illinois from July 18 through July 20, 1996. This flooding caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage and two deaths. Cardiac tamponade is a life-threatening complication of acute pericarditis. These patients require urgent pericardiocentesis. All patients should be given a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug as first-line treatment. Colchicine should also be given, unless the patient has tuberculous pericarditis. Debabrata Mukherjee, MD Gill Foundation Professor of Interventional Cardiology Director of Cardiac Catheterization Laboratories Gill Heart Institute Division of Cardiovascular Medicine University of Kentucky Lexington KY Disclosures DM declares that he has no competing interests.