HAWAII IN STATE OF EMERGENCY; OFFICIALS ORDER EVACUATIONS DUE UNPRECEDENTED FLOODING

Live on the high ground.

When they want to build something they find the money......

Gloria G

I live on a lake, in the basin of an old volcanic eruption. I live on the shoreline and have for 20+ years. In my case, floods rise slowly and you can make a safe decision to evacuate. So far? I have had one occasion where I had to "think" about evacuating. It was simple in a way. My employer loaned me a box truck, we put all the things at groud level in it, including the garage and the stuff on the deck that could float around in the waves and break a window. We moved most of the good furniture upstairs and what was left we put up on a couple of layers of concrete blocks. We put plywood over the windows facing the lake side. We removed every other plank on the pier leading out to the boat docks, and we removed the boats. The water that year took out those boat docks and the swim platform, the pier held and so did the houses and the decks. It is a weird feeling to be on the second floor of our house and watch waves breaking against your deck and rush towards your house and then disapate before reaching it trough the slots in the deck. The water when settled, came up to the top edge of the foundation. (we blocked the vents to keep it out from under the house and used sand bags to protect the bottoms of the foundation. The box truck sat in the drive way and I stayed in my house through all of it as it never got in the house and I was safe enough. However, people that live on rivers? Or live on hills where they become lliquid mud usually dont have the length of time to load up things and get out. I am in California, in fire country, neighborhoods burnt over or burnt out last summer south of me are now having mudslides that are taking out the highway and some of the homes that the fire didn't get now have ruined homes due the mud slides. ......and are, like Hawaai, evacuating. In my case? I would have left if the rain had continued, but again, I saw it coming, we prepared for it, we knew what do and did it in a timely manner. I have had 4-5 times in the 20 years where the water came up high enough to be cocerned, only one where we lost the docks and such. I am still here, and will probably sell in the next year or so, because I am getting older....

Gail Strong

The biggest suggestion for everyday people I would give is to do your homework when you're considering buying a property. Knowing if you're own place is in a flood plane is important, but also knowing where they are around you could be crucial to survival, too, should you need to leave, especially at night. I have friends in Houston who never thought there would be a problem where they lived, since their property sits up on a little hill, but during Hurricane Harvey, they ended up getting stranded by floodwaters and were trapped for days, unable to get out of their own driveway because their street and most others leading back to them were underwater.