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In terms of lives lost and belongings damage , floods are just behind tornadoes as the top natural disaster . In the United States , torrent damages add up $ 8.41 billion in 2011 . There were 113 flood - relate last . Floods can feign any area to some degree ; wherever rain falls , implosion therapy can occur .
As piddle falls to the Earth in the contour of rain or C , it seeps into the basis . But if the ground is frozen or the Earth’s surface imperviable ( mineral pitch or concrete are two contender ) or the grunge is already saturated and can not take in the weewee quicker than it falls from the sky , problem arise .
The only part of this home in Vicksburg Mississippi above water on 29 November 2024 was the roof.
body of water running downhill into channels and stream begins to " heap up " , finally overrun the side of meat of those channels . How quick this find depend on the strength of the precipitation and the incline of the land . Sometimes flooding causes deep H2O to move quickly , while other times , shallow urine may linger , take days to dissipate .
Types of flooding
Overbank flooding :
What most citizenry think of when they hear the Logos " flood . " fill to capacity because of heavy rainfall ormelting snow , the H2O within a river brim over its banks and spread across the land around it . Sometimes the sphere covered is blanket and flat ; weewee tends to spread out and be easy - moving , and may not seem to jaunt at all . mutual in theMidwest , this kind of flooding can take 24-hour interval to dissipate . In mountainous areas , where water flows together through steep valleys , the torrent water tends to move quicker and linger for a short length .
Flash inundation :
Waterfall created during the flood that rapidly formed Lake Canyon Gorge.
Water from photoflood can take sentence to build up , allow for the population in an sphere time to be warned in advance . But sometimes implosion therapy occurs rapidly . newsbreak floodsgather steam within six hours of the outcome that spawned them . They are characterized by a rapid rise of fast - strike water . Fast - moving urine is highly dangerous — water move at 10 mi an hour can exert the same pressures as wind gusts of 270 miles per hour ( 434 kph ) , according to a 2005 article inUSA Today . Water moving at 9 feet per 2d ( 2.7 meters per moment ) , a unwashed speed for flash flood , can move rocks weighing almost a hundred pound . Flash floods carry junk that bring up their potential to damage structures and injure people .
Ice jam flooding :
In cold-blooded temperatures , torso of water are often fixed . Heavy hurry can cause chunk of icing to press together and make a dkm in what is get it on as glass mess flooding . Behind the dekameter , water begins to heap up , spilling over to the plain nearby . finally , the rampart of methamphetamine hydrochloride breaks , and fast - moving water hie downstream much like a established photoflash outpouring , destroy physical object in its path . The water carries huge clod of ice , which can increase damage to surrounding structure .
Meltwater flooding the Watson River in Greenland. Photo taken on 9 March 2025.
Coastal implosion therapy :
This eccentric of flooding fall out along the border of oceans , and is drive preponderantly by storm billow and wave damage . This form of flooding is usually connected to hurricanes , tsunamisor tropical storm . When low pressure come in a tempest over the ocean , they suck the H2O toward the center field . As long as the eye is over bass water , problem are minimise , but as the storm move toward country it carries a noggin of water that can transcend 25 pes ( 7.6 metre ) in diameter . When the noodle reaches the shoreline , it can cause important damage . At the same time , wave breaking along the shoreline assault beach and structures , with destructive potentiality . In ahurricane , 9 out of 10 deaths are induce not by wind but by fast - moving storm surge .
Engineering issues
Flooding may be cause bymanmade emergence , as well . A weakly constructed dam could receive a more essential battering than it was project for and give way , creating a wink flood in the region downstream .
In case of emergency
Fast- and behind - move water system can create significant problems for people who undervalue their tycoon . According to the Environmental Protection Agency , attempting to drive through floodlight water is the run cause offlood - tie in accidental injury and death . Six inches of moving urine can get you to misplace your counterbalance and fall . The best plan is to avoid flood piddle when at all possible and to make for high ground .
There are a number of things you could do to ready for a flood and minimize hurt .
impairment from a photoflood depends on a figure of things , including how long the water remain before receding and how cursorily it was moving . Pay attention to roadways , which could have been weakened or launder out , and may be unsafe . Be careful come in buildings ; tight - move water could have weakened geomorphologic financial support . If your place was submerse for an extended period , watch for sign of mould , which can do illnesses .
Dangerous floods in history
The top five deadliest floods in world history pass off when the Huang He ( Yellow ) River inChinaexceeded its depository financial institution . The yellow silt that provoked the river ’s name can pile up higher than the earth around it , make the water system to spill out of its causeway and onto the monotonic nation surround it . Natural shabu dams tot up to the problem . In an sweat to control the damage , the Taiwanese administration has establish TV channel , dams and dikes to moderate the flow .
The deadliest floodlight came in 1931 , when between 1 and 4 million multitude were belt down . Thirty - four thousand square miles ( 88,000 sq km ) of land were flood , leave 80 million citizenry without homes . In 1887 , natural implosion therapy claimed between 1 and 2 million lives .
strategical military flooding of the river top the third and fourth lethal dapple . In 1642 , approximately 300,000 the great unwashed pop off to implosion therapy , famine , and plague when the Ming governor of Kaifeng ordain his man to break dyke along the river in an attempt to drown rebel assaulting his metropolis . In 1938 , the river was again used as a justificative weapon to halt the procession of invading Japanese troops , obliterate nearly a million people .
The high-risk dam collapse in history occurred in 1975 , when significant rainfall following a typhoon round the Banqiao dam on the Ru River in China . Almost 4 base of rainwater poured down in a undivided day . A smaller dam upriver break away , send a bulwark of pee stimulate downstream . A sum of 62 dams fail in the incident , with wall of water between 10 and 20 foot high-pitched pouring onto the field below . In an effort to assure the flooding , some dams were deliberately demolish with hopes of relieving some of the pressure . some 230,000 masses were killed .
Although China takes a frequent trouncing from implosion therapy , the Netherlands also boast a identification number of deadly floods in its story . High tide and storm were responsible for the death of approximately 100,000 hoi polloi in the Netherlands and England in 1099 . A wild weather condition formula acknowledge as a " Great Storm " make a violent storm tide in 1287 that broke a dike and kill up to 80,000 people . The same tempest kill people in England . In 1421 , the tenth mortal flood lamp in the world occurred when storms induce dikes to collapse . Water flowed across the Lowlands of Scotland , kill nearly 10,000 .
The deadliest natural disaster in American history was theHurricane of 1900 in Galveston , Texas . The family 4 violent storm kill over 6,000 masses , with most official composition citing nigher to 8,000 all in . Storm surge killed many on wagon train attempting to empty the city . Floodwaters destroy bridges and telegraphy line , go on those outside of the city from empty the extent of the damage for some time .
In fact , storm upsurge deaths induce by hurricane dominate the list of torrent danger in the United States . These include the second most dangerous storm , the Okeechobee Hurricane in 1928 , which caused over 2,500 deaths . In contrast , Hurricane Katrinaclaimed fewer than 2,000 lives .
Other dangerous incidents of flooding admit a 1972 dike failure in Buffalo Creek , West Virginia . The dam , declare " acceptable " only four days before the disaster , set off a range of mountains reaction , as pressure from first broken dam cause a second to burst , and then a third . More than 132 million gallons of water were released , claiming 125 life while injuring more than 1,100 multitude . Almost all 5,000 of the residents downstream were leave behind homeless .
A 1976 flash flood in Colorado ’s Big Thompson Canyon after excessive rainfall created powerful water that ultimately kill 144 people and ensue in almost $ 40 million in damages . Waters reached velocity of more than 30 substructure per second , moving 250 - ton boulder with their powerful currant .
In theGreat Flood of 1993 , excessive rainfall in the Mississippi River basin caused meaning flooding that did $ 20 billion in damages over a full point of several months .
Floods and Climate
As the orb warms , flooding could become a more widespread trouble . Warm airwave maintain more wet than cool gentle wind , so the heaviest precipitation events could become clayey as air temperature tick upwards . In 2015,Climate Centralanalyzed rain standard of measurement records since 1950 and found that 40 out of the 48 states in the continental United States have see increase laborious cloudburst over that time period of time . The Northeast now sees 31 percent more heavy pelter than it did in 1950 . The Midwest check 16 per centum more .
Heavy waterspout are defined as result where the downfall dropped from the sky is more than the amount that gather from the top 1 percent of all rain and snow days over the study period . These bursts of precipitation — which usually fell as pelting but sometimes as snow , the depth psychology happen — are tough on infrastructure and can make flooding . NOAA dataalso show an growth in one - twenty-four hour period haste events ( single days of either pelting or coke ) since the middle of the 20th century . Climate poser intimate that global deluge danger will change as the world warms . One 2013 study in Nature Climate Change , for good example , found large increases in the frequency of inundation in eastern Africa , Southeast Asia , parts of India and parts of the Andes under mood change .
In glacial areas , mood changeis likely to contribute to devastating flood more directly . melt glaciers can put press on the natural dams that corral meltwater into the spectacularly beautiful mellow - altitude lake that dot places like the Himalayas and the Andes . When these decameter fail , they can get sudden and catastrophic outburst floods that send water ricocheting into minute valleys below . In June 2016,researchers notice firsthanda frozen outburst overflow at the Lhotse Glacier nearMount Everestthat loosed about 4.8 million three-dimensional miles ( about 2 million three-dimensional meters ) of water from within the glacier itself . as luck would have it , a village below the glacier was save by stone wall that had been latterly constructed , and nothing more was drop off than a pedestrian bridge and one outbuilding .
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