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With all the tall trees in the area, 50" of rain and just a little bit of wind would create a massive amount of downed trees. Power lines, houses...lots of damage.
Doesn't take 50 inches for that. Aforementioned Hurricane Fran dropped less than 20 inches and took out TONS of trees.
The real question that has come to me is why do we still build in flood plains? Why don't we just convert that space to green space and leave mother nature alone?
So this thread and pictures from Harvey got me thinking to take a stock of our situation. I searched around and found topographical info of region around where I live in northwest Cary.
1) Body of water around my house.
Lake Jordan 214 ft. MSL (Ref1, Ref2)
Cary Park lake 260 ft. MSL (Ref3)
Falls Lake 250 ft. MSL
Neuse River in wake county ft. 190 MSL.
2) Our basement 290 ft. MSL
3) Highest part of Cary 500 ft. MSL (Ref4)
4) 240 ft. is flood level for Lake Jordan.
How do one go about modeling heavy rain situation and will water get to our basement? any thoughts?
I'm not saying they haven't shown it, I'm just saying for whatever reason the networks are more interested i showing human rescues in a jon boat.
What would be factually helpful nationally is to see how far the flooding has spread, and at what level above sea level.
Which was my unstated/inferred point to begin.
Many of the folks posting on this thread haven't been around that long - some even not since Matthew last year. Matthew basically turned the entire land mass from Fayetteville east and southeast to the SC line to a pond. (And by the way, the helicopter pictures of flooded areas were everywhere, not so much a flood area map) Is the current landmass affected larger? I don't know, because it's been made readily apparent in media reports. Certainly, we know the 6MM+ population exceeds the area of ENC.
The 0.2% flood risk area is the 500 year flood map (500 year flood doesn't mean once every 500 years, it means a 1 in 500 chance of it occurring in a given year, 1/500 = 0.2%)
I was curious, but all I see is "There is no flood map printed for the selected location." Oh, well.
As the first eyewall of Fran was about to pass over Raleigh, I had to evacuate into the storm, and I remember standing in water ankle-deep on a flat lawn. I was confused because there was no stream or creek nearby, but soon determined that the rain was coming down in such copious amounts that the storm drains had no way to handle it in real time. During the eye, the water drained.
I think huge storms like what is happening in Houston will start happening more as our climate is in a changing pattern and ocean waters are warming up. North Carolina being a coastal state that the Gulf Stream touches could make a storm like Harvey all the more possible.
I helped cleanup Johnstown PA in 1977. 12 inches of rain overnight. There was erosion damage at the top of hills.
Floodwaters ran down streets and scooped the dirt out and flooded and mudded houses on steep hillsides.
50 inches over several days in Raleigh would destroy much of Wake county. Muddy, fast water up and over the 100 year line. FRIS.
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