If you thought last week's flooding across the St. Louis area was unprecedented, you're either very young or you've got a short memory: In both 1973 and 1993, St. Louis nearly drowned as the Mississippi reached record heights.
At the time of the Great Flood of 1993, University City native Brian Chilson was working as a commercial photographer in downtown St. Louis (for Dreyfus + Associates), as well as a stringer for the Suburban Journals' West County bureau. "I was always looking for stuff to pitch the photo editor to run," he recalls.…