a 100 year Flood

psy-ops

psy-ops

Joined
Sep 27, 1999
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Listening to the news. Many people in SW Washington were hit bad by floods. They have had 3, 100 year floods in 17 years.

A one-hundred year flood is calculated to be the level of flood water expected to be equaled or exceeded at least once in a 100-year period.

The 100-year flood is more accurately referred to as the 1% flood, since it is the event which has a 1% chance of being equalled or exceeded in any single year. Based on the expected water level.

10-year floods have a 10% chance of occurring in any given year; 50-year flood, 2% chance; 100-year, 1%; 500-year, 0.2%; and 1000-year, 0.1%. The percent chance of an x-year flood can be calculated by dividing 100 by x.

Crazy odds for the people in Washington.

What kind of "practical" preparations could these people have taken to save some valuables and get out quickly? A woman was interviewed and she said that the water came in 5 minutes. They had time to throw stuff on their beds but the water rose higher than their beds destroying their stuff.
 
Here in Minnesota a few years ago, they were interviewing one of my neighbors during the flooding. "Yah, these hundred year floods, dis is my third one." In complete Minnesota accent deadpan.

Seriously, just like we adjusted the windchill, and we adjust daylight savings time, shouldn't we adjust 100 year to reflect more accurate levels. I mean, these percentages are based on less than 200 years of data.

later
xdshooter
 
My mother has told me stories of this flood, "the most destructive and costly flood in Arkansas history and one of the worst in the history of the nation.

It afflicted Arkansas with a greater amount of devastation, both human and monetary, than the other affected states in the Mississippi River Valley.

It had social and political ramifications which changed the way Arkansas, as well as the nation, viewed relief from natural disasters and the responsibility of government in aiding the victims...

In largely agrarian Arkansas, the Flood of 1927 covered about 6,600 square miles, with thirty-six out of seventy-five Arkansas counties under water up to thirty feet deep in places. In Arkansas, more people were affected by the floodwaters (over 350,000), more farmland inundated (over two million acres), more Red Cross camps were needed (eighty of the 154 total), and more families received relief than any other state (41,243). In Arkansas, almost 100 people died, more than any state except Mississippi. In monetary terms, the losses in Arkansas (totaling over $1 million in 1927 dollars for relief and recovery) surpassed any other affected state....

The September 1927 National Geographic said that the streets of Arkansas City (Desha County) were dry and dusty at noon, but by 2:00 p.m., “mules were drowning on Main Street faster than people could unhitch them from wagons.” Water poured in and had nowhere to go. Homes and stores stood for months in six to thirty feet of murky water. Dead animals floated everywhere. Rich Arkansas farmland was covered with sand, coated in mud, or simply washed away, still bearing shoots from spring planting."

Granpa was a farmer with land bordering the St. Francis River. With an axe, he cut the porch from their house and, making trip after trip dragging the porch against the current with two old mules, ferried the family and everything he could salvage to high ground. She still cries when she hears Johnny Cash sing "How high's the water, Mama?" The Cash place was a few miles across the cotton fields from our farm.

My mama always taught me that good things come from adversity if we put our faith in the Lord.
We couldn't see much good in the flood waters when they
were causing us to have to leave home,
But when the water went down, we found that it had washed a load of rich black bottom dirt across our land. The following year we had the best cotton crop we'd ever had.

I remember hearing:

How high's the water, mama?
Two feet high and risin'
How high's the water, papa?
Two feet high and risin'

We can make it to the road in a homemade boat
That's the only thing we got left that'll float
It's already over all the wheat and the oats,
Two feet high and risin'

How high's the water, mama?
Three feet high and risin'
How high's the water, papa?
Three feet high and risin'

Well, the hives are gone,
I've lost my bees
The chickens are sleepin'
In the willow trees
Cow's in water up past her knees,
Three feet high and risin'

How high's the water, mama?
Four feet high and risin'
How high's the water, papa?
Four feet high and risin'

Hey, come look through the window pane,
The bus is comin', gonna take us to the train
Looks like we'll be blessed with a little more rain,
4 feet high and risin'

How high's the water, mama?
Five feet high and risin'
How high's the water, papa?
Five feet high and risin'

Well, the rails are washed out north of town
We gotta head for higher ground
We can't come back till the water comes down,
Five feet high and risin'

Well, it's five feet high and risin'

Nearly a hundred years ago.

Codger :(
 
Dont build or rebuild in a flood plain.

I know it sounds obvious but people keep on rebuilding and rebuilding, at some point common sense must kick in right?

Whenever I move I am sure to survey the land for flooding and make sure its above worst case scenario +50%.

If there is enough water there is nothing you can do to save property. I would own a boat and salvage as much as I could before its lost. Keepsakes are the big item, photos momentos, hard drives, legal docs etc... the rest can be replaced.


Skam
 
Good plan but... people have been and will be attracted to live and work where there is economic opportunity. Failures of dams and levies, torrential rains are hard for even gummit egg spurts to predict. Otherwise, forbid people from living in eathquake zones, downwind of volcanos, or within 100 miles of the Gulf Coast. Ahh...Atlantic seaboard as well. And I'd be willing to bet that the majority of the people who are currently affected by the Oregon flooding are not in a historic flood plane.

Codger
 
chrisaloia said:
in 5 minutes.
Click to expand...

I think you hit the nail on the head there. You should be ready to roll in five minutes.

Having your info in order and stored on a flash drive in a waterproof container can be a real asset - here's a place to start to get your info gathered:
http://www.ncua.gov/Publications/brochures/EmergencyFinancialFirstAidKit.pdf

If you have family pictures you want to save, you may want to get those scanned to digital copies and stored too.

Whatever you take you've got to be able to carry it yourself and you've got to have it ready in hand and set to go - in five minutes.
 
chrisaloia said:
Crazy odds for the people in Washington.
Click to expand...

Not wanting to turn this into a political thread but this has nothing to do with crazy odds. Global warming is a fact and not debatable anymore (It may be a political debate, the scientific debate is long over). Expect more hundred year floods and even 1000 year floods to come. And it is hardly only the Washington area. The unstatistical occurance of sever weather patterns are observable all over the world.

Regardless, my thoughts and prayers go out to those affected by the flood.
 
Codger_64 said:
Good plan but... people have been and will be attracted to live and work where there is economic opportunity. Failures of dams and levies, torrential rains are hard for even gummit egg spurts to predict.
Click to expand...

Locating your family is a choice. If you want to be in a frequently affected areas like the Ohio river valley, tornado alley or a trailer park in Florida you take a risk. The law of averages doesnt lie. Sure something can happen anywhere but smart people consider the potential risk to life and limb based on history and common sense. Otherwise you are part of Murphy's law like the rest of us.

Some risk can be mitigated with intelligent thought.

Skam
 
When I moved out here from the Midwest people thought it was odd that I wouldn't even consider property that wasn't on high ground. Coming from the Midwest I was far to used to frequent flooding and all the rivers, new construction, and low ground around Western Washington reminded me too much of home. Sure bad things can happen anywhere like the big windstorm we had last year but I've had enough of water in my house to last a lifetime so the house we bought is 500ft. above sea level. I'm not blaming those affected but when you do have the rare luxury of deciding where and how to live it's wise to take things like this into consideration.
 
skammer said:
Dont build or rebuild in a flood plain.

I know it sounds obvious but people keep on rebuilding and rebuilding, at some point common sense must kick in right?

Whenever I move I am sure to survey the land for flooding and make sure its above worst case scenario +50%.

If there is enough water there is nothing you can do to save property. I would own a boat and salvage as much as I could before its lost. Keepsakes are the big item, photos momentos, hard drives, legal docs etc... the rest can be replaced.


Skam
Click to expand...

Damn right- the only way to prepare for these is not living in a flood plane.
Being a geologist I cringe when people talk about it happening so fast, and how they never knowing it was coming.
 
Codger_64 said:
Good plan but... people have been and will be attracted to live and work where there is economic opportunity. Failures of dams and levies, torrential rains are hard for even gummit egg spurts to predict. Otherwise, forbid people from living in eathquake zones, downwind of volcanos, or within 100 miles of the Gulf Coast. Ahh...Atlantic seaboard as well. And I'd be willing to bet that the majority of the people who are currently affected by the Oregon flooding are not in a historic flood plane.

Codger
Click to expand...

I won't forbid 'em from doing that... but I sure as hell won't live in California :D

(I have more reasons than just the earthquakes though!)

Oh, and I'm willing to bet it is a historic flood plane, floods don't just happen randomly in places they've never happened before unless there is significant changes to the topography. Maybe just not "historic" in recent human history- but there will be evidence in the sediment.
 
I have been here 5 years and went through two 100 year floods, what are the odds for that? :confused:
 
xdshooter said:
Seriously, just like we adjusted the windchill, and we adjust daylight savings time, shouldn't we adjust 100 year to reflect more accurate levels. I mean, these percentages are based on less than 200 years of data.

later
xdshooter
Click to expand...

Aren't they also based on evidence left in silt layers from previous floods?
 
So many great replies don't know where to start.

I think the global warming thread is very real. I would think the odds would change though. That is why I said crazy odds.
 
akennedy73 said:
Having your info in order and stored on a flash drive in a waterproof container can be a real asset - here's a place to start to get your info gathered:
http://www.ncua.gov/Publications/brochures/EmergencyFinancialFirstAidKit.pdf
Click to expand...

As far as this goes, I have a Treo 650 smartphone with a 2Gig SD card in it. I also have a Palm TX with a 2Gig SD card. Both sync with my Mac's address book, and I also sync certain specified directories on my hard drive. These contain important information such as our tax files (appropriately encrypted, of course, with gpg).

I never walk out of my house without my smartphone, and I usually also have my TX. If TSHTF, these are ready to go at a moment's notice.

And don't even get me started on my out-of-state backup strategy.

I've lost data before to a hard drive crash. I can't imagine what it would be like to lose everything to a house fire or an earthquake. Where data is concerned, you just can never be too paranoid.
 
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