They are going to have to "recalibrate" the term "500 year flood"

[Dudeman1967]

or we are due about another thousand years without a flood of this level.

I drove across the Missouri and Mississippi rivers yesterday and the flooding was very 1993'ish looking. Both rivers are closed to all boat traffic. Levees are failing all over.

Just like in 1993 they find out that most levee districts cheat on their levee heights. We need a more universal approach to water management.

I know someone who bought a house that was in the 500 year flood zone. He paid federal flood insurance for a decade. Now that the levees have been raised legally and illegally along the river that they determined that he is now in the 100 year flood zone. His insurance jumped significantly. He is going to have trouble selling it now.

 

[shoeless]

 

[Tig]

Story checks out, as Hurricane Harvey reminded us.
Then and now:

 

[baimun]

Yeah, a few years back South Bend and Elkhart Indiana had 500 year and 1000 year floods within 2 years of each other. Entire neighborhoods underwater... the park where I proposed to my wife was just bridges that arced into the river.... no land visible at all. My wife has students who are just now, years later, getting back into their homes.

 

[bsman]

Oh sorry....I came here for the climate change denial....

 

[yabba]

they undoubtedly will have to recalibrate/recalculate flood risk numbers due to climate change, but a "500 year flood" etc is kind of a misleading term. it just means a flood level that's 0.2% likely to occur on ANY given year, so it's unlikely that it's going to happen on a particular year, but it doesn't mean that it's any less likely to happen the next year, or 5 years after it last occurred.

(kinda like the classic example of how it's unlikely that you'll get 100 'heads' in a row on coin tosses, but each time you toss it, it's 50/50, regardless of the previous toss)

 

[Mark Wein]

Wow. That sucks.

 

[dodgechargerfan]

Even inland lakes are feeling it. On a smaller scale, but it still has an impact.
I know one business that considered this the last straw and closed up. There were a lot of other things but this was the “f*ckit” moment for the owner.

https://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/news-story/9404138-high-lake-levels-impacting-business/

Those are my grandkids in the pictures.

 

[smurfco]

I’m about halfway through a book called the uninhabitable earth. It’s about climate change. It’s exquisitely depressing.

 

[VoidTerraFirma]

30 years, give or take.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/...tion-coming-to-an-end-in-2050?utm_source=dmfb

 

[PaulD70]

Time flies when you’re having floods?

 

[shoeless]

Story checks out, as Hurricane Harvey reminded us.
Then and now:

I grew up about a mile from that intersection. Braes Bayou runs parallel to Braeswood and overflowed its banks during Harvey, which is why the water was so deep there.

 

[Tig]

I grew up about a mile from that intersection. Braes Bayou runs parallel to Braeswood and overflowed its banks during Harvey, which is why the water was so deep there.

I think the 35" plus rainfall that area got had a little to do with it as well.

 

[shoeless]

I think the 35" plus rainfall that area got had a little to do with it as well.

Of course. I was just pointing out, that like the areas near over flowing rivers, that particular intersection is very close to the bayou that is supposed to direct storm runoff away from the neighborhoods. When the bayou goes over its banks, areas nearby get the worst of it. I doubt there's a city anywhere that has a drainage system capable of handling 35"+ rainfall in 24 hrs.

That bayou was like a bicycle highway for us as kids. We would ride for miles and end up anywhere between Alief and Herman Park.

 

[rickenvox]

You don't need to worry if you have no money. People on the river are happy to give.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk