I'll stay in place

I have a "cache" in my office ( Bottled water, tea, coffee milk, biscuits, honey, brown sugar, multitools, flashlights ..etc.)

If I have to sleep at work, I'll collect lab coats and such and use them as bed spreads, pillows, blankets ..etc.

Throw my duffle bag and a paddle into the canoe, then grab a spare paddle and hop into it.

12 feet is a lot of water, I would be cursing about Hydro-1 and their sloppy control over their dams the whole time I was paddling

I'm also in the "all but impossible to flood" category. My work is about 25 miles from the coast, 400' above sea level, with a nice huge river valley leading directly to the shore. I live on the rim of that same valley, also at 400', 11 miles closer to the coast.

So if, somehow, we were going to have 12' of water for an indefinite time, we'd also have one heck of a river running down that valley.

I'd rush home, throw the cat in her carrier, and throw her and what little equipment I've already collected in the car. By then traffic would make it impossible to get off the plateau before water filled the valleys on each side, and cut me off. So I'd continue to load my car with extra canned food/cat food/my computer tower/clothing/etc. until it was filled, then head for the central portion of the plateau.

I'd hunker down there until the water went down/we were evacuated and hope it didn't widen Mission Valley enough to include my home.

The only real possibility to produce 12' of water at my work is some kind of Pacific Ocean impact event, producing a 400'+ Tsunami. If I had an hour's warning of that, I'd do basically the same thing: go home, Cat and current equipment in the car along with 6G jerry can of water and my 3 day's canned food from the cupboard, then join the masses trying to escape.

Most likely I'd end up a statistic in that scenario, but if I had time to rescue Bella, I'd have to at least try.

Been there, done it twice.

The first time was the worst. I drove to work (12 miles) and walked into the office and my boss met me at the door and said the local news said the freeway was being closed in about 15 minutes.

Drove home to high ground and stayed there for four days. Here in the PNW, I simply refuse to live in the flood plain.

My Mom and sister were living with me in a rental mobile home. We had plenty of food and stored water, but we never lost power.

The main problem was the septic. It was 20 years old, had two homes on it, and had never, ever, been cleaned out. With the water saturation of the soil, it was FULL and no longer usable.

I brought in my camping toilet, but we needed to empty it every 24 hrs since my sister is a chronic flusher. (No, my sister doesn't adapt to changing conditions, if you're wondering.) So we emptied it into 5-gallon buckets with lids and lined them up on the deck. On Day 5, the landlady called a septic pumping co and the guy did what should have been done months before, and cleaned out all the buckets, too.

When I bought my place, I prepared for my elderly Mom to be stranded there by herself if my sister or I couldn't get there: plenty of food, plenty of dog and cat food, stored water, extras of most of her meds, battery lanterns (6-volt- easy to hold, lots of light, safe), wood stove, firestarters and kindling nearby, and extra firewood of a size she could handle in a rack just outside the back door (under the deck roof), and an old phone with a cord that wasn't dependent on having power. And some dependable neighbors.

But when I got stuck the second time, I was already home, and the main problem was explaining to my dispatchers in Idaho that NO ONE was going into or coming out of Centralia, and neither were the trains.

If you live at altitude the scenario changes because you must deal with a wider cataclysm. It is a thought experiment.

Because i live on a sailboat, I would sail to a protected spot and anchor up with a lot of chain/rope to ride out the coming of the flood. I would then monitor the radio and try to determine the most survivable spot to stay for a while, perhaps just staying put.

If things were going to be really bad over a fairly wide area, I would sail out of the area.

"...I would sail to a protected spot and anchor up with a lot of chain/rope..."

I have always wondered if that was the best thing to do...

When there have been really bad storms, many boats pull loose from their moorings and are shoved into other boats, docks and right up onto the land. If this happens, your boat isn't likely to be livable, even if isn't in Davy Jones' locker.

What about riding it out at sea???

Sue the Landlubber

I cannot get to sea in an hour, otherwise a good idea.

You are already 5 minutes behind me!

Assuming that the water will be rising the whole time until it reaches 12 feet, I would stay put. Unless I'm very close to higher ground, all transportation will quickly bog down very quickly long before the water gets very deep, and being stuck outside or in a vehicle in rising flood waters is far, far riskier than trying to ride it out in a tall enough building.

On the other hand, if we're talking something like a tsunami, lahar, dam break, or some other situation where the water will arrive all at once, I might consider making a run for it since the ground will be dry before that wall of water arrives.