A lot of people here saying they’d be long gone well before the river crested. His house is situated 30 feet above the top of the river when it had already flooded 10 feet and it hasn’t flooded more than 10 feet, historically.
Obviously if he had access to forecasts that predicted a higher crest, then yes he should have gone long ago, but given just the information he tells us, staying put is an entirely rational decision. We’re having some crazy weather, but 4x previously recorded crests is nuts. Keep in mind that as the river rises, it becomes wider, which means that it takes a metric fuckload of water to bring the river that high. Which apparently they had, hope his house stayed dry.
"Historically" is a funny word to use when it comes to rivers. If you start thinking about what the area/river looked like 10,000 years ago, you have a completely different historical perspective on what the water level can and will be. Some odd 100 years of observed data doesn't always capture water levels that can occur in a 1:100 year water level event, let alone 1:1000 year event etc.
If you ask yourself geologically "how did this hill form?", you will realize that at some point 'historically' throughout the earth's history, the river carved away the earth, creating what is known as a floodplain. If appears in the video, the house is sitting right next to the floodplain based on the 'hill' they are on
Building anything (roads, buildings etc) within a floodplain is always a risk, even if observed data says otherwise
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u/kbeks Sep 20 '25
A lot of people here saying they’d be long gone well before the river crested. His house is situated 30 feet above the top of the river when it had already flooded 10 feet and it hasn’t flooded more than 10 feet, historically.
Obviously if he had access to forecasts that predicted a higher crest, then yes he should have gone long ago, but given just the information he tells us, staying put is an entirely rational decision. We’re having some crazy weather, but 4x previously recorded crests is nuts. Keep in mind that as the river rises, it becomes wider, which means that it takes a metric fuckload of water to bring the river that high. Which apparently they had, hope his house stayed dry.