Have you ever experienced a flood???

[Kitty 34]

This seems to be the summer of flooding in some parts of the world like parts of Texas and of course some parts of Europe and Asia!!

Have you ever experienced a major flood??

We have been fortunate in mid-Michigan and never have but we were in Kentucky a few years back after some major rainfall and my boys still talk about all the floods and muddy waters!!

Once, I did have to turn around on a dirt road as all of the snow melting was causing some major flooding on the roadway......two years ago.

 

[JohnTBap]

Tropical Storm Allison - these people are standing on an overpass of US 59. The bridges are approximately 20 ft. tall.

 

[helenabear]

We did while we were in Florida on a family vacation back in 1982 (I think). It was only a day long flood but it was bad enough that our van wound up stalling in the water and we had to spend the night at a hotel while our van dried out.

 

[newmousecateer]

Wow. Did we ever here in Illinois in 1996 (?). They called it the "100 year rain storm" because we were not supposed to get that much rain within a 10 yr span of the last one.

The power went out abot 3:00 a.m. We got 3 ft of water in our basement (out house was only a couple of yrs old )
My freezer in th basement tipped over, so I had food floating in the water. We had grass seed, deck sealer, a 36" tv, and lots of other stuff floating in the water.

It took 3 days to pump the water out and then we had to have the basement professionlly cleaned.

We now have a generator just in case this happens again.

 

[Big Dude]

I've been through quite a few floods. I'm originally from a town called Manville NJ. There have been times that my brother and I have gone out in our little 16 foot alluminum boat and picked up stuborn people from their houses. I thank the good Lord that our houses have never been affected by flood waters,

The last storm that came through NJ was devastating to the Manville/Bound Brook area. I took my 12 yo DS to the flooded part of town and we picked a house (at random) that looked like the people could use some help. They thought that we were angels but in reality, we just wanted to help out our brothers and sisters in need. Both my son and I were truly humbled by the sincere appreciation that the owners showed us. I as well as my DS will never forget that experience.

Adam aka Big Dude

 

[Chattyaholic]

I'm in mid-Michigan too, and we did experience a flood here back in '89 I believe it was. We received 7" of rain in just a few hours, then it rained every single day after that for a solid month. Roads were covered in water, rivers overflowed, stores in Alma were flooded that were near the river, and the dam at Rainbow Lake was washed away. Our crops (we farm 1400 acres) were totally ruined, we were helpless to just watch them turn black and decay right there in the fields. Once everything finally dried out everything needed to be done at once. That was the only year I really helped on the farm, to drive tractor and chisel plow several fields. It was awful, no crop insurance...but thankfully we raised hogs back then and had money coming in from those. I rememeber our neighbor's house was flooded, but thankfully ours wasn't. It was a bad year....

 

[Pin Wizard]

When I lived in NJ our town seemed to have floods MANY years in the spring thaw. My sister had been renting an apartment in a low lying area, not far from the river. Her apartment building was completely flooded! The water was over the roof. I remember walking from my parents house down to "the village" as it was called to check on things. There were police cars there, and they were checking ID's before letting us go on. What a mess! Mud all over the highway, buildings, etc. I didn't even get into her building because part of the roadway was still flooded. She was lucky enough to come across someone with a row boat who took her to her apartment and brought her back. After that I just remember my dad helping her clean the entire place. It's amazing how quickly everything can be gone. She had a neighbor that lost her kitten, Tibby. The poor thing. We couldn't find it anywhere. So sad. When my parents were looking YEARS ago to buy a home in that town, the realtor tipped off my dad and said...make sure you buy above the railroad tracks. Apparently, railroad tracks are built to NOT get flooded. Thank goodness he did! I also had a friend who had major flooding in her house. She rented a home on the street right along the river.

 

[Sonya]

our unofficial motto:
Missouri- your federal flood tax dollars at work!

I have been though several. Thank goodness my house has never been affected. In '77 I was at a Royals game and we had a big flood here in KC, I remember dad driving home and seeing abandoned cars and people in the roofs of cars. It was horrible.

Then in '93 was the big 500 year flood. There were only a few bridges that you could go across the Missouri river on, one was in town, the next was over 150 miles away. I'll never forget walking across a bridge that led to nowhere.

We also get a lot of flash flooding, and I've had to drive way out of my way many times to get around high water.

 

[Barb]

We came home from a WDW vacation to 4 feet of water in our basement. I guess that was our own personal flood.

 

[Kama89]

Yep... twice in the same year when I was a teenager. Eighteen inches in the house one time and approx. 10 the next. Not fun.

 

[KarenB]

Yep, and I never want to expereince it again. In January 1996, we were getting the last batch of record snowfall. The entire town was on their roofs, shoveling off the snow because there was so much and a fear of the roofs collapsing. I remember I could simply jump off our roof and land safely in the snow that had accumulated. There was probably about 3-4 feet of the white stuff on the ground, plus what I shoveled from the roof.

Well, the next day, for some unknown reason, the temps went up to the 60's and it poured and poured! Combine the rain, warm temps, and all that snow already on the ground and you have a major flood occuring.

Our town is right along the Susquehanna River, which was frozen at the time, and I will never forget the eerie noise of the ice on the river creaking and grinding as it hit the trees and homes in the way. Then the electircity went out! All the bridges were closing, which cut many people off from thier homes and work. Schools were closed and a state of emergency was called.

It was awful. We were very, very, lucky and only got about 6-10 inches in our finished basement.

 

[Planogirl]

We used to have a lot of floods in the Houston area. During one particularly bad one, I distinctly remember sitting in a pickup truck with water up to my waist while some guys pushed it to higher ground. Luckily, our home was high enough to not be affected but I missed work for a few days.

Strangely, tropical storms seem to hit Houston the worst. I remember Hurricane Alicia and the flooding was minimal.

 

[imgoingtodisney]

ahyup - thank God it was before DS was born. We were living in an apt and the roof caved in! part of it anyways and our part of course. We had to move out of the apt for a while, they put us up in a hotel. They had to replace the rugs and air the place out. It only affected a few of the apts. When I was grabbing our stuff we had to wade through inches of water on the ground. DH heard it start to come down the walls-that's when we realized something was going on.

 

[christineann]

I had four feet of salt water in my house during Hurricane Hugo. I think the water went through the house fairly quickly, but it still ruined everything - even busted open a locked chest freezer. I can't imagine what the people who are dealing with on-going flooding are going through. My brother in law is a catastrophic adjustor, and he's been working claims in Texas for the past 2 weeks.

 

[jx3smom]

Living on a barrier island, I have experienced my fair share of floods. The first one was when I was 6 and it was our first year here. It was the great March of 62 storm and it lasted 4 days.

I've been in many since then. The nice thing about tidal flooding is you know it will go out during low tide. We've had one that actually got inside the house in Dec of 92. It came up in my boys bedroom that is 2 steps lower than the rest of the house.

We always joke that we have waterfront property on occassion.

 

[mum4jenn]

Yes!!!! We went through the 500 year flood in 1994.Tropical storm Alberto stalled over GA and the result for us was 6 1/2 FEET of water in our house(we were on a foundation so it really was more like 8 feet of water). The water stayed in our home for over a week before it started to recede.I believe the flood total here was something like 5 feet over the highest flood level ever recorded.The city was divided in half and anyone that lived on the East side could not get over the bridges because the water was so high and flowing so fast. The State Patrol finally found a route that took 3 1/2 hours one way just to be able to get to the other side of town.
We rebuilt only to be flooded again in 1998(not nearly as bad though). We were bought out by the Government a year and a half ago so we moved into a brand new house AWAY from the water!!!!!

We actually were not that close to the river before but this was an extreme flood. Many people in the state lost their lives and at one of our cemetaries hundreds and hundreds of caskets came out of their graves. Some had been there for over 100 years!! They were able to identify most of the bodies but they ended up doing a mass grave for the ones they could not identify.