When I bought my weekend cabin property one of the locals showed me a picture taken during the 1992 floods of someone paddling a canoe through the lower field of the new property, and he said "it floods here".

When I got home I checked the survey done as part of the purchase, and the lower field is 60' (sixty feet) above the normally-dry riverbed.

Ranch Rule #1 became "Nobody is allowed in the lower field after a heavy rain".

(the cabin is a further 70' up and 50'+ above the spillway over a dam 4 miles downstream - it's safe)