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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhat the Harvey deluge would look like where you live
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/08/30/what-the-harvey-deluge-would-look-like-where-you-live/?tid=pm_politics_pop&utm_term=.bdf9240e79Hurricane Harvey has already broken the record for the most rainfall from a single storm in the continental United States, even as its diminished remnants move on to drench Louisiana. The most rain recorded in a single place during the storm was an astonishing 51.88 inches in Cedar Bayou, Tex. just shy of the 52-inch U.S. record for rainfall set in tropical Hawaii.
Its a huge amount of water that fell across a remarkably wide area. As a meteorologist with Harris County, Tex., noted on Twitter, enough rain fell in Houston to sink the entire county under 33 inches of water. Thats almost what happened, too, given Harris Countys broad and flat contours.
That amount of rain has been tough to visualize. To that end, weve created a tool that imagines a 51.88-inch deluge drenching a number of points in a circle around where you live (or anywhere else) and visualizing what the effect would be: where in that circle the water would pool and how deep it would get. (For our purposes, were imagining each point to receive 51.88 inches over a square yard of surface.)
TheOther95Percent
(1,035 posts)I'm assuming at ground level. I'm in an apartment 50 feet up.
pangaia
(24,324 posts)I just checked several places near where I live. My address would be under 5'.
There is a lot of open space around my small 'city.' grass, fields, etc..
But another place that I KNOW is a good 30-40' higher would be under 7'.
And another address that has to be 100' higher than I am would be under 2'. And that is at the top of a hill so everything would drain down.
Am I missing something?
sinkingfeeling
(51,434 posts)TexasTowelie
(111,893 posts)Half of the town that I live in is under water. If the Colorado River rises another two feet then there would be water standing in the parking lot of my apartment complex.
bathroommonkey76
(3,827 posts)The map said my place would be under 10.8 ft of water. No way- I live in a condo on a hill. We have never had any type of flooding in this area during a hurricane. #BS
CrispyQ
(36,413 posts)I still see the devastation that caused out on our trails. I can't even fathom Houston.
I read that if you took the water dumped by Harvey (& this was a few days ago!) & spread it over the lower 48, it would it would cover everything to the height of three pennies.
jpak
(41,756 posts)Maine river valleys are rather steep and not too many homes and businesses would be affected.
But steep terrain would result in local flash flooding that would take out roads and bridges.
A lot of people would be high and dry - but very isolated for a long time.
ProudLib72
(17,984 posts)Evidently, I live in a depression.
FloridaBlues
(4,002 posts)It would devastate most of the state ESP my area
The River
(2,615 posts)and that's why I live on hill on a foothill in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
Lisa0825
(14,487 posts)It says I'd be in 4 ft of water. Now, I probably actually DID get that much rain, based on the weather reports. But thankfully I had almost a full 12 hours with no rain for my town's flood pumps to work between deluge #1 and deluge #2. Otherwise, yeah, I'd have been floating down the street.
The water got to my front stoop twice, but I was very lucky that it stopped there.
Break time
(195 posts)Put in my address, we live on a slight hill and all around us is steeper than that running down into a river it says I would have 12 fee of water at my place. In order to do that the water would have to be about 75 feet deep over several square miles of ground..About 27 actually