bws48, yes my general line of thinking is to stay put, even in the worst historical floods any of the old timers in our community here can remember, the water has not been high enough to cause any real danger, even to the old home that was here before, and I do mean old. The front part of the old house that DW grew up in was an old log-cabin made from hand hewn logs and built in approximately the 1800's. When we inherited the property after her father died in 1998, we tried to look into fixing the old place up, but everything was too old and too far gone, even the newer parts of the home that had been added on over the years, a combination of termite and water damage from leaky roof and gutters. We had to tear the old house down so we could rebuild. In the process, we tried to salvage a few odds and ends, in the upstairs part of the old log cabin, we found newspapers on the log walls, under the paneling, that dated back to the 1940's. A lot of history in that home, we saved as much as we could, but most of it was too far gone. Interestingly enough, there was no evidence of any previous flooding events.

Anyway, I digress. Our main flooding problem here is flash flooding. It is not the typical flooding you might think of, with waters rising slowly, giving you time to fill sandbags to protect property or shore up a levy, this is fast, potentially hard hitting flooding, waters can rise and fall in a matter of hours, so many times you really don't have a choice but to stay put. And even if you did have the time to decide "this is the point I should bug out" there is really nowhere to go. Head for town? That takes you right alongside the same river that runs behind the house. If you did make it to town, you run right into an even bigger river that is fed by the one I have mentioned. This bigger river flows alongside the main highway in both directions for at least two hours worth of driving in either direction. One of those directions puts you right at the Ohio River. Given the choices, I think we're staying put.

Many steps have been taken over the years to help eliminate the flooding such as this project to eliminate the almost yearly flooding that would occur in town. Flooding has also been partly eliminated in my area by a smaller cut-through project. It doesn't totally eliminate the issue, but it has reduced it significantly. There are also PLENTY of low lying areas for rising waters to fill first. As far as the drainage ditch/stream goes, it has not risen outside of it's banks except in the back yard, where it merges with the river, and even if it did, the house sits on a further elevated area beyond it. Water has come across the road where it overflowed it's banks on the other side of the road due to debris blocking it's path, but I have only seen that happen once in the last 23 years. Even then it was not a significant amount of water.

Here is a video I found of a really bad flood that occurred here in 2010. This is an atypical flood event, the result of abnormally large amounts of rain falling in just a few hours, and even during this one that occurred within 5 miles or so of our house, the water did not come up to even touch the foundation of our home. I feel reasonably safe bugging in here, but I also realize the importance of having a plan in place to get out of dodge if time permits. I also realize the damage that the floating debris in flood waters can do. I never ever drive across water, esp moving water across a road. I may have come across the wrong way when I mentioned a last resort bug out plan. The plan I am thinking of, is absolutely last resort, if something caused the home to collapse or become unsafe, and we had to get out and seek higher ground or just find shelter on foot. I would not even think about trying to get in the car and cross water that is moving across the road. It might be looked at in hindsight as an epic fail in not getting out of dodge BEFORE things got this bad, but the reality of flash flooding here is, you just never really know.

I know this sounds crazy and counter-intuitive to what everyone is probably thinking, but bugging out at a safe point is just not really a viable option, unless DW and i both quit our jobs and leave town every time any significant rain is predicted. This is not a realistic option for us.