Relocating from flood

[Ed Pawlowski]

This family in Tennessee decided to relocate to avoid the flooding waters. Seems to be a sensible way to do it easily

[gfretwell]

That is why we have tie down requirements here.

A thought has crossed my mind many times. How many people would have been saved if they had a $15 Walmart life jacket for everyone in their storm supplies.

[angelica...]

Hard to say. A fair number of deaths in floods are from crushing by debris.

Cindy Hamilton

[Ralph Mowery]

I think I would just rather have the house float away instead of everything being waterlogged about 5 feet up the walls. Those homes that are flooded with a few feet of water will probably never be the same again.

I never could understand why people build in a flood zone. I know a few times due to construction things change, but not that often. There is a small creek about 100 feet from my house. It is only about a foot deep and 2 feet wide and only about 1/4 full most of the time. It does get out of the banks for about 30 feet and is about 3 or 4 inches deep a few times a year. All that land is flat. However the house in about 20 feet higher so I doubt it will ever reach here. I was aware of that possiable flooding when I bought the house about 15 years ago.

[Ed Pawlowski]

I know a guy in the same situation but his house is not raised and he has a basement. Most years he had some flooding. Would have made a lot of sense to skip the basement and raise it a couple of feet.

Many coastal homes in New Jersey have been raised since they were built at ground level in the 50s and 60s. I've seen a couple with a carport where you can drive the car up a couple of feet.

[micky]

When I drove around south of New Orleans in 1970, many of the houses were built on stilts, to protect them from flooding, but there were a lot of others 20% iirc that were right on the ground, and they looked rather new. 60's style. Why would they buld on the ground when their neighbors had already built on stilts.

I tried to use Google street view to find this area again but didn't succeed.

That's good.

I have a stream about 100 feet from my property line, but the enlarged stream bed that it fills at least once a year is right next to my property. One time that I checked the water was only 1 inch below the top of the stream bed, 1 inch below my property, on the rear and left sides of my lot. I have a small lot because its an end-of group townhouse so it's only about 50 feet from there to the basement window, but it's about 10 inches higher there so I think I'm safe from flooding.

The stream is about a foot deep and 10 feet wide, but a little after it starts raining if it's raining enough, it can go to 8 feet deep and 50 feet wide.

I came across a government map that showed predicted water levels, and it included flooding half of the street in *front* of my house, but that's never come close to happening.

They did substantial dirt importation, I think, to build my lot, because instead of tapering gradually to the stream, it's almost flat until it falls off. And they may have used a bulldozer to rearrange the stream. some.

I've heard it's designed that if the water gets any higher than it has, it will flood the street on the other side of the stream, but I should go during flood stage and see if it's almost that high over there.

But for all this I like the location, I like the woods that border the stream on the side of the house, I like the deer I see there occasionally, I like watching the water.

[Ed Pawlowski]

If you were there in 1970, good chance they were all built on the ground and some were later raised. I know of quite a few houses built around that time in Tuckerton NJ the same way. My SIL owned on there in the

70s. Man made lagoons so you could be on the water. Later most houses were raised.

Today they would not be allowed to be built like that.

[Alex]

Bullshit.

[Ed Pawlowski]

What about those melting ice caps? Scientists have it wrong?

[gfretwell]

Most simply drown. They may be unconscious at the time from an injury but they still die of drowning. A decent life jacket will keep an unconscious person's face out of the water.

[gfretwell]

The difference is how much your floating house does to other structures like bridges or other houses. Plenty of people come back from floods. My addition would shake off 3 feet of water with no serious injury beyond the carpet and replacing the receptacles. There is no drywall in there other than the ceiling. All the wiring is wire in pipe, water proof conductors (THWN), buried in concrete.

I can't understand why FEMA lets them build back. The law says if a structure is 50% damaged (tax appraisal on the structure alone) you have to build back above the FEMA FIRM flood plane. They enforce that in Florida. Other states, not so much. If nothing else FEMA should refuse to sell them flood insurance. New construction has had to be above FEMA here for decades. It is a sign off before you can set trusses. (The tie beam inspection)

[gfretwell]

I still do not understand why they were allowed to rebuild anything after Katrina without being above FEMA.

[Alex]

They don?t produce worse flooding in inland creeks, streams and rivers.

They don?t say what he claimed.

[rbowman]

I lived on a creek when I was a kid. It would flood every spring and sometimes during the January thaw. You learned to not leave your stuff laying around on the cellar floor.

The year I was born my parents relocated to my uncle's for a few days. No damage to the house but the water was above the grate in the coal furnace.

[rbowman]

Shit happens, alway has.

[Ed Pawlowski]

There will be coastal flooding

[Alex]

Depends on how long that continues and that wasn?t what was being discussed.

[Alex]

Just because someone claims something...

And even that doesn?t claim that all creeks and rivers will flood more than they used to.

And even if all scientists claimed that, and they don?t, it remains to be seen how true that is.

[rbowman]

No coast here, not my problem.

[Alex]

And yet we don?t actually see a lot more flooding in Texas than in other parts of the USA. Same with Mexico compared with Germany recently.

Like I said, just because someone claims something...