What are the three types of flooding?

There are three distinct types of flooding that can happen during a tropical storm. Do you know what they are?

Transcript

00:00Sometimes there could be a flood of confusion about different flood terms.

00:06I want to talk about three separate types of flooding.

00:09We have river flooding, and that's something that is easy to visualize.

00:13This is long, sometimes after periods of very heavy rain, maybe a day or two or three removed.

00:19The rivers slowly rise, and they can become long-term problems for days,

00:23sometimes even weeks on end in very flat areas where there's not much elevation change.

00:28And lots of roads are often closed.

00:30This rarely sneaks up on people, quite like flash flooding can.

00:34But in this case, we're still dealing with big dangers.

00:37And when roads are closed, obey the barricades.

00:39Even just six inches of moving water can sweep you off your feet.

00:42Twelve inches it can carry away most cars.

00:44Two feet of moving water can carry away large vehicles.

00:47So that's river flooding.

00:49Flash flooding is a little more instantaneous.

00:51This is a short-term, rapid rise, often tied to a thunderstorm or a period of excessive heavy rain.

00:57And this is a combination of the destructive power of a flood but with the speed.

01:02And this often catches people by significant surprise.

01:05A lot of the time, flash flooding happens.

01:07And then with the same storm event, river flooding will follow as well.

01:11Storm surge flooding happens with tropical systems.

01:14This is a totally different animal.

01:15This actually is not directly tied to rainfall.

01:17This is a result of the strong winds of a tropical storm or hurricane

01:22over hundreds and hundreds of miles, sweeping the top layer of water into land.

01:27And that will lead to coastal inundation.

01:30During high tide, it becomes especially bad.

01:32The dunes are there to protect against the storm surge.

01:35But a lot of the time, with a strong enough storm, the dunes fail.

01:38And big-time flooding can travel even miles inland.

01:41There have been cases in southwest Louisiana where the storm surge over a very flat area, like Cameron Parish,

01:47the storm surge has traveled dozens of miles inland.