Water Resources: Hydraulics and Hydrology
high the water got in my house three years ago. If you can tell me if it's going to be
higher or lower than that, then I have some reference. So if he says, "Well, if the
forecast says the water is going to be three feet higher at this particular location than it was
in 1986," for example, and that person knows how high it was, then why he can know
what to expect. Otherwise, he just doesn't know what to look for.
So when you're trying to get information to the people that are being impacted, you need
to have some sort of references for them to work with. Just doesn't do any good to tell
them we're going to have a flood.
Q ..
I can see what you mean. They're not going to know at all what that means.
A ..
"Yes, well, so it's a flood, but am I going to be impacted?" That's the big question. It's
hard to tell sometimes, too, because it depends on what their relationship is to the gauges
where you're making the forecast. But, anyway, it helps a lot if they keep in mind
particular floods in the past and how high they got, then they have a much better chance
of knowing what can happen to them in the future.
Q ..
So you and the Weather Service--well, the Weather Service--will make the statements--it
will be so many more feet and or something like that.
Well, and now they have better information, too, because of the flood insurance program.
A
Most of the flood prone communities in the country are in the flood insurance program.
So there is
on flooding in communities. People can, if they will make use of
that information, they can get these, what they call
flood insurance rate maps.
They show the floodplain, and they also have flood profiles and that sort of thing for the
10,
and a
floods. Even the
floods so that if they're near a
stream and they know the river mile and the stream that they're near, they can get a pretty
good idea of how high the water is going to be in that particular location. So there's a lot
better chance of fmding out what is going to happen to you now than there used to be even
though the Corps or the Weather Service could tell somebody there was going to be a
flood of 50,000 cfs or whatever.
They didn't have much of any way of answering a guy when he said how is it going to be
in my house. So because they haven't done any water surface profiles in that area. In
most areas, they hadn't performed water surface profiles. But now most communities
have such things, which makes it a whole lot handier. Of course, this information is
constantly being updated and improved.
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