I wonder how many of those people in the basement might have had their drowning helped by going into water that had live current in it. I've been zapped enough times to be glad I never took current across the heart or lungs- in water, your skin has zip for resistance. Go down in water, and if you can't get back up...

All good input. As to the recurring frequency of 100-500 year events, I too see this. I live on a semi-rural property (20 acres) with lots of hills, and hence drive/drainage issues. Fortunately my house is elevated on a plateu, but I have begun to "harden" alot of my drainage ditches, culverts and the like as I too feel we have more extremes occuring. We had 5" of rainfall in 2 hours a few years back from a "stalled" evening thunderstorm. ALOT of damage, raging torrent of water here. Good planning to keep all this in mind.

Ironwood