Hurricane Preparedness Blog

If a town in a 500-Year Flood Zone last flooded in the year 2000, when will it flood next? The answer to that question may not be so obvious…

Prior to this June, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was described as the city that would never flood. Surely, many residents felt safe because of this rumor, like Cedar Rapids was some kind of impermeable, flood-dodging city. In the recent past, Cedar Rapids had avoided several major Midwestern floods- until this summer, when their previous flood record was broken by an estimated twelve feet.

As the OneStorm team researches the floods and tries to discover the overall feeling of flooded Midwestern communities, it seems like a disturbing outlook prevails: many of the residents didn’t think it could happen to them. In a New York Times article, we found a Cedar Rapids resident quoted as saying, “We all thought this was a great place to live because it would never flood.” A second flood victim was seen carrying one tub of clothes and framed photos of his children; everything else he owned had been lost. He told a reporter, “I never even thought about flood insurance… they said this place would never flood in 500 years.”

When the Midwest endured a major flood fifteen years ago, experts termed it as the “100-year” or “500-year” flood. Because of this, it seems that many families erroneously believed that they could drop their flood insurance- another major flood would come one-hundred to five-hundred years in the future, right? No, sadly, horribly, wrong.

Now in the disaster community, experts and disaster officials are reconsidering the use of terms like “100-year flood.” Apparently, the message this gives the public is that once they endure a hundred year flood, they will be safe from flooding for the next hundred years. As victims’ reports continue to pour in, this wording seems to have led many people astray. Many Midwesterners were caught unprepared by the recent flooding, and some have said they dropped their insurance because of the false safety the flooding terminology conveyed.

The moral of the story is that no area is safe, even if it is rumored to be. Terms like “100-year flood” are only somebody’s best guess, but it’s a fact that an area can flood anytime and anywhere. With your home, your family, and your well-being at stake, let’s bet on the facts rather than the probabilities, so hold onto that insurance.

Sources Cited:

“Experts: Flood Terms Mislead Public.” MSNBC. 30 June 2008. 5 July 2008.Maag, Christopher.

“In Eastern Iowa, the City That ‘Would Never Flood’ Goes 12 Feet Under.” The New York Times. 13 June 2008. 5 July 2008.

Did you enjoy Midwest Flood Realities: “500-Year Flood” Not To Be Taken Literally? Subscribe to RSS Feed.