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How Floods Work · Stuff You Should Know

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  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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  Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
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  Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
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  Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W Chuck Bryant,
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  Speaker 1: and that makes this Stuff you should Know the podcast
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  Speaker 1: The Saturated Podcast. This week Super Saturated, Bloody Podcast. I
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  Speaker 1: don't know why this came to mind. I didn't see
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  Speaker 1: any flood that happened on the news. It just I
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  Speaker 1: think I happened across it searching randomly in a thought.
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  Speaker 1: It's a good one. Look cover with that one. Yet
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  Speaker 1: flooded stuff always creeps me out. Oh yeah, yeah. I
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  Speaker 1: think it goes back to my days in Toledo as
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  Speaker 1: a young boy. Um many times growing up in my
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  Speaker 1: house on Beverly Drive, there were there the mommy would
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  Speaker 1: flood and um my basement would flood as a result,
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  Speaker 1: and times it would come all the way up to
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  Speaker 1: like the top step. Really yeah, I just think about
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  Speaker 1: like all my dad's tools down there like underwater, and
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  Speaker 1: it weren't supposed to be. It was just really creepy
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  Speaker 1: because you just opened the door and step on the
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  Speaker 1: landing and then there's just water. You can kind of
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  Speaker 1: see like the top couple of steps that was, you know,
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  Speaker 1: suggested all the other stuff that was down there. So
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  Speaker 1: I think since then, I've always been fascinated and creeped
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  Speaker 1: out by the idea of things that are supposed to
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  Speaker 1: be above ground submerged like ships. When we talked about
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  Speaker 1: the Bermuda Triangle, like down there in the trench never
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  Speaker 1: to be found, Like, yeah, that's creepy. Yeah, the same
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  Speaker 1: thing with floods. Man, it didn't It doesn't creep me
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  Speaker 1: out like that, but I get it, okay, so um chuck, Yes,
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  Speaker 1: I take it you're familiar with flooding. Do you remember
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  Speaker 1: the one in ninety four done in Albany, the Great Flood,
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  Speaker 1: the Flint River flood. Oh man, it was all over
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  Speaker 1: the news like they were like, um, in Albany, Georgia,
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  Speaker 1: don't remember. There were caskets, like four hundred caskets were
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  Speaker 1: loosed and we're just kind of floating around. They were.
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  Speaker 1: They had this weird tendency to congregate towards trees or
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  Speaker 1: around trees, and um they some people started lashing into
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  Speaker 1: that because they had to have a court order to
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  Speaker 1: even grab the caskets, but apparently it was the second
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  Speaker 1: worst cemetery disaster in the United States. Couldn't find I
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  Speaker 1: was in Athens at the time. I was. I was
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  Speaker 1: not up on it was a big it was a big,
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  Speaker 1: big thing. I'm surprised, but it was really creepy. You
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  Speaker 1: can see pictures of like caskets just kind of floating around. Um. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: they recently found a human school that they think was
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  Speaker 1: part of the remains that was moved by the flood. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's amazing how out of the news loop I was
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  Speaker 1: while I was in college. Yeah, because it was pre Internet. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I didn't get the paper. I was in college. Who
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  Speaker 1: gets the paper and reads it? I knew people who
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  Speaker 1: sold the paper. I didn't have TV, so yeah, I
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  Speaker 1: knew about class and working at Maskalie Grill and sleeping
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  Speaker 1: late and all of the kinds of things that I
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  Speaker 1: can't talk about. That's awesome. I remember the Gulf War
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  Speaker 1: that happened, well because of the Internet, that um came
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  Speaker 1: after your college years, like two decades after your college years. Um.
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  Speaker 1: You can see video of the news footage. You're fine
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  Speaker 1: stepping back in time. I will do. Well. Let's talk
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  Speaker 1: about flooding chuck um. First, I guess to understand floods,
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  Speaker 1: we need to give a brief primer of the hydrological cycle. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: we do, if you ask me. Uh, there's been about
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  Speaker 1: the same amount of water on Earth for a long
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  Speaker 1: long time. Yeah, I thought this was fascinating. Yeah, but
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  Speaker 1: it hasn't always been in the same place as we know,
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  Speaker 1: and it's not it's not the same water necessarily. There's
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  Speaker 1: a constant loss and gain of water. Yeah, every day
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  Speaker 1: you lose water, obviously to the atmosphere where like um, uh,
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  Speaker 1: the solar rays and other cosmic radiation just blasts water
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  Speaker 1: vapors into like nothing, You're gone, You're by longer water. Sorry,
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  Speaker 1: as that is going on. Volcanic activity in the core
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  Speaker 1: or not the core necessarily, but in the inner Earth
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  Speaker 1: is releasing water and it about balances out on a
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  Speaker 1: day to day basis. But did you know that volcanoes
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  Speaker 1: released water? Sure after I read this. Yeah, we even
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  Speaker 1: did a Hot Volcanoes Work podcast and I don't remember
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  Speaker 1: talking about it releasing water. But when water is generator
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  Speaker 1: introduced into the upper Earth in the atmosphere, it comes
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  Speaker 1: from volcanoes of volcanic gas is water vapor, so it
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  Speaker 1: about it balances out on a day to day basis,
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  Speaker 1: which is pretty remarkable. Yea, almost as if it's happening
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  Speaker 1: that way for a reason. And are you familiar with
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  Speaker 1: the anthropic principles that we'll talk about it sometimes, right, Oh,
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  Speaker 1: it's not directly relating to this, No, it's about the
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  Speaker 1: concept of why everything is so falling and has fallen
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  Speaker 1: so perfectly into place that we are able to notice
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  Speaker 1: this and say, wait a minute, it almost seems like
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  Speaker 1: we're supposed to be here, right, And the anthropic principle
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  Speaker 1: is like, yeah, and there's like five million other worlds
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  Speaker 1: out there that didn't happen like that, so we aren't
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  Speaker 1: there to say, wow, it's almost like everything fell into place,
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  Speaker 1: so we're supposed to be here. Interesting, we'll see. You
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  Speaker 1: just told me about it right now. Trick to you. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: Water can be all around the earth in three different forms,
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  Speaker 1: as everyone knows. You have liquids, rivers, oceans, lakes, uh,
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  Speaker 1: rain solids we've talked about and this this kind of
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  Speaker 1: collects a lot of our podcast in a way, like
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  Speaker 1: the clouds and the and now we're talking about the Antarctica.
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  Speaker 1: Lots of frozen water at the falls the Antarctica, or
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  Speaker 1: it can be gas which is water vapor in the air. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: and it's all moved around by the wind thanks to
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  Speaker 1: the sun. And remember, I can't remember which podcast we
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  Speaker 1: talked abo and whether it was the sun or clouds
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  Speaker 1: or something, but wind is created by um. The exchange
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  Speaker 1: of air is warm air is heated at the surface
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  Speaker 1: and rises cooler air rushes in to fill that vacuum.
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  Speaker 1: There's your windpal Yeah. And then well, once that warm
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  Speaker 1: ay rises, though, it's also going to get colder and
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  Speaker 1: form little droplets of water which form together to form clouds,
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  Speaker 1: which we went over in fluffy little clouds, right, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: because the the sun um heats the ocean surface, that evaporates,
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  Speaker 1: like you said, it rises, forms clouds, and then eventually
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  Speaker 1: those clouds become pregnant with rain and rain falls down. Right.
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  Speaker 1: As the rain falls down, it fills waterways, rivers, streams,
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  Speaker 1: that kind of thing underground um. But for the most part,
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  Speaker 1: some of it does go to phil aquifers and that's storage,
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  Speaker 1: but the vast majority of it makes its way back
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  Speaker 1: to the oceans where the process begins again and everything
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  Speaker 1: is complete in the circle of life. That's right. The
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  Speaker 1: cool thing here is wind is pretty consistent across the globe.
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  Speaker 1: Wherever you live, your weather is pretty consistent. You might
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  Speaker 1: think if you live in Atlanta, like, oh, that's crazy
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  Speaker 1: in December here at sixty degrees. But by and large,
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  Speaker 1: if you look at the big picture, your weather systems
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  Speaker 1: are pretty consistent on a day to day basis, although
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  Speaker 1: in the case of flooding, anything can happen on any
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  Speaker 1: given day to knock things out of whack. Right, So
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  Speaker 1: you have, um, a storm comes about, a thunderstorm, and
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  Speaker 1: you're like, wow, it's a pretty bad storm. Um, because
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  Speaker 1: you are capable, your area is capable of experiencing a storm.
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  Speaker 1: Your area is capable of experiencing a freak storm, like
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  Speaker 1: a huge thunderstorm. Sure that dumps so much precipitation on
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  Speaker 1: on the ground in such a short amount of time
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  Speaker 1: that these normal waterways that have been formed to hold
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  Speaker 1: the normal amount of water become overwhelmed. The water fills up,
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  Speaker 1: spills over the banks, and there's your flood. Yeah, And
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  Speaker 1: that's the key what you just said there is these
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  Speaker 1: waterways they form over a great, great period of time.
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  Speaker 1: You don't a river doesn't just spring up over the
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  Speaker 1: course of a year. Because there's a lot of rain,
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  Speaker 1: it takes like of several years. It takes a long
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  Speaker 1: long time to sort of get a feel I guess
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  Speaker 1: of how much rain there is generally, And so this
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  Speaker 1: is how big I'm gonna be if I'm a river
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  Speaker 1: in Georgia, exactly. This is all I need to be,
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  Speaker 1: except for the freak of currenc in. Oh my god,
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  Speaker 1: now it's a flood. But then after a flood, it
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  Speaker 1: goes right back to where it was before. It's not
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  Speaker 1: Rivers don't tend to plan their size for the worst
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  Speaker 1: case scenario. They're very lazy. That's a great way to
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  Speaker 1: say it, lazy lazy rivers. UM. So, like we said,
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  Speaker 1: the the most common cause, the one that people are
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  Speaker 1: most familiar with. Um. The most common cause of flooding
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  Speaker 1: is um, a large storm that allows a an anomalous
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  Speaker 1: accumulation of precipitation. Yeah, with rain, could be uh, melting
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  Speaker 1: ice from a mountain or snow, but rain is the
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  Speaker 1: one we think about most often. And like you said,
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  Speaker 1: because weather and patterns are pretty um, pretty stable over time. UM.
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  Speaker 1: In a lot of places, depending on the season, you're
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  Speaker 1: going to get anomalous normal precipitation, right, like monsoon's seasonal flooding. Right.
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  Speaker 1: So with the monsoon, um, you have in the winter time,
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  Speaker 1: the air over the land is colder than the air
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  Speaker 1: over the ocean, So the air over the ocean is
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  Speaker 1: rising in the air over the land is moving out
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  Speaker 1: to fill it up, so that that means the wind
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  Speaker 1: is blowing out toward the ocean's uh. In the summertime,
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  Speaker 1: the opposite is true, and so the wind is blowing
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  Speaker 1: in toward the land and that brings with it the
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  Speaker 1: monsoon rains brings with it water and this annual monsoon flooding. Um,
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  Speaker 1: we talked about it. We didn't call it that because
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  Speaker 1: we're not that small, aren't. But in the how of
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  Speaker 1: the Nile River works, yeah, exactly, it was. It was
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  Speaker 1: and still is a very big part of their how
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  Speaker 1: they thrived over the years was they knew that the
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  Speaker 1: Nile would flood each year and extend the water out
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  Speaker 1: and when it waters were seated, that left a nice
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  Speaker 1: fertile banks on which to live and plant foods. And
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  Speaker 1: remember we talked about some of the problems from the
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  Speaker 1: Aswan Dam and other dams that they built along the
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  Speaker 1: Nile to control flooding. Basically say we're gonna release this
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  Speaker 1: amount of waters and go crops year round and people
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  Speaker 1: aren't gonna lose their houses to the nile flooding every year. Um.
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  Speaker 1: That is actually one of the big causes of flooding too.
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  Speaker 1: Damn breaks. Did you see that damn video I sent you.
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  Speaker 1: I didn't have a computer. You didn't look. You didn't
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  Speaker 1: see it on your it was flash. Uh it's really neat.
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  Speaker 1: I'll look at it later. I can't remember the name
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: of the damn, but it's in Washington State, And in
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  Speaker 1: October of this year. UM, it had like a controlled
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  Speaker 1: demolition and they just blew a hole in the bottom
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  Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, this water search comes pouring
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  Speaker 1: out and fills this area up, and then it starts
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  Speaker 1: to recede, and you see the water behind the dam
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  Speaker 1: just start to go down as the water in front
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  Speaker 1: of the dam starts to go up. It's really neat
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  Speaker 1: looking not to check that out. Or if you're from
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  Speaker 1: Pennsylvania or a historian, then of course you know about
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  Speaker 1: May thirty one nine, the Johnstown flood. Um And it
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  Speaker 1: wasn't just Johnstown by the way, It's known as the
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  Speaker 1: Johnstown flood, I think because that was the largest town
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  Speaker 1: that it flooded, but it was I think fourteen miles
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  Speaker 1: up stream from Johnstown was the South Fork damn, and
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  Speaker 1: it hit a couple of towns on the way. Finally
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  Speaker 1: hit Johnstown, Uh six to ten inches of rain in
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  Speaker 1: twenty four hours, to the tune of a sixty ft
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  Speaker 1: wall of water going forty miles per hour wow, rushed
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  Speaker 1: through town. UH twenty million tons not gallons, twenty million
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  Speaker 1: tons of water. And it was the first big disaster
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  Speaker 1: relief effort by the Red Cross. Yeah. Um, I got
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  Speaker 1: a number of two thousand, two hundred nine deaths, UH
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  Speaker 1: seventeen million in damages, which would be over four hundred
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  Speaker 1: million dollars today, like close to a half a billion
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  Speaker 1: in damages. And Springsteen fans might remember that from the
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  Speaker 1: song how We Patrolmen. These sings about the Johnstown flood
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  Speaker 1: really folk hero, He's all over it. We also remember
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  Speaker 1: we talked about in the Human Caused Earthquakes episode the
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  Speaker 1: Viant Damn in Italy, a landslide caused a wave to
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  Speaker 1: go over the dam and killed two thousand people. That
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  Speaker 1: seems to be the number when a damn breaks or
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  Speaker 1: for each two thousand people die. You know what I
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  Speaker 1: think it's cool is after having done like four hundred
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  Speaker 1: plush shows like the our world is starting to narrow
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  Speaker 1: a bit. You know what's really crazy, What is we've
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  Speaker 1: already had this discussion and now we've come back to
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  Speaker 1: having it again. That's really narrow Well. I just think
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  Speaker 1: it's cool when you do a podcast on flooding and
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  Speaker 1: it's also one about the Nile in clouds and volcanoes,
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  Speaker 1: and I mean, we're still a long way from covering yeah,
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  Speaker 1: the sun, We're a long way from covering everything. But
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  Speaker 1: our world view is narrowing in a good way, and
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  Speaker 1: now we're like men and knights. Um Land plays a
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  Speaker 1: big part because you know, you can have a lot
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  Speaker 1: of rain, but depending on what kind of land it's
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  Speaker 1: falling on, it's gonna affect how much it floods. If
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  Speaker 1: it floods at all, like the soil in the middle
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  Speaker 1: of a forest, it's gonna really soak up a lot
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  Speaker 1: of water. Hard clay or rock or obviously concrete and
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  Speaker 1: asphalt aren't gonna soak up much if anything, so that's
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  Speaker 1: gonna lend itself to flooding. Yeah, and um, agricultural lands,
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  Speaker 1: crop lands that have been tilled, they're more prone to
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  Speaker 1: flooding than woodlands. Do you want to know why? Yeah?
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Why I was wondering. You got that. We're about to
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: circle right back again. But to earthworms, that's exactly why.
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  Speaker 1: That's why woodlands don't flood like farmland because there's more
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  Speaker 1: little passageways from earthworms. Yes, and if you till cropland,
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  Speaker 1: if you till the land has a a deletrious effect
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  Speaker 1: on the earthworm popular that word like that. Yes, the
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: earthworm population in the area, they basically leave, they take off,
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  Speaker 1: or else they're cut in a bunch of pieces. So
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  Speaker 1: it does have a very delus effect. Deletrious, deleterious. What
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: is it species that called out big time? It's species.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: It's deletrious. It's not deletrious. Um say talk about species.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: I was wrong on species because it's there are two
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: acceptable ways of saying that. No, there's a right way species. No. No,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: if you look it up, it says species or species.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: I can't say anything. I can't even keep track of
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: the difference between I and I and me. Concrete an asphalt,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: which I mentioned Josh here in the western world. There's
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  Speaker 1: a lot of that going on. If you go to
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  Speaker 1: a city like l A, which I lived in, as
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  Speaker 1: you know, Uh, they have these concrete flood relief channels
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  Speaker 1: built in. You don't even have to go to l A.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: You can travel there via the movie Greece. Oh the
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: like the l A River basins that what that is? Yeah? Okay, yeah,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: that is in T two. It's in the movie Them
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: and These that that you know, the where they have
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: the car, they called it the l A River, which
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: is kind of funny. Yeah. Um, before they paved it
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: with concrete. Um, they used it for the canoe scenes
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: and a lot of the Tarzan movies in the thirties.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: It's all just smoking mirrors. Mash was in Malibu for
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: God's sakes. Um Levies Josh are another reason it can flood,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: as we all saw with the disaster with the Katrina
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  Speaker 1: New Orleans when the levee breaks, as Robert Plant said,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: got no place to stay. No, you don't. And do
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: you remember earlier this year when they purposely opened the
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: Morganza spillway. Yeah, basically they sacrifice some local crop land
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: for a lot more downriver. And that's one of the points,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: like the reverse of the thinking usually or it has
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: been historically. Well, that's the point they make about all
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: levies though, is generally they're great for that area, but
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: there's generally there's gonna be a problem on down the
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: line at some point. Well, the same thing with concrete
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: storm basins. It's the same. It's you're you're basically just saying,
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  Speaker 1: all right, let's get the water through here, and then
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: when like the tower base runs out your county line,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: you handle it, and here's your flood county, but beneath us. Well,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: what I couldn't find about the Morganza spillway was the
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: the effect, Like I saw like a hundred articles on
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: the fact that they're going to open it up. And
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: then the only article I found Poe releasing like I
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  Speaker 1: think it was first time since nineteen seventy three they
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: opened up a lot of these gates, was like a
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  Speaker 1: week after they said, well, it doesn't look like it's
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  Speaker 1: going to be as bad as they thought. And that's
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  Speaker 1: all I found. If it's the one I'm thinking of,
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  Speaker 1: it was a huge cluster that was on the Army
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Corps of Engineers. They they created an incorrect estimate and
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: it really screwed up a lot more land than they thought.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: If it's the same one I'm thinking of. It was
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  Speaker 1: this year last year. Yeah, it was spring when the
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: rivers were rising, and they said, we can't devastate New
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: Orleans again, so we're gonna open up a lot of
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: these gates, like up in like Missouri or something. Right,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: No, no no, no, it was in Louisiana. Okay, Well, there
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: was one in Missouri where they let the levy loose
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: um and flooded some crop land and it ended up
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: like screwing things up all the way down or over
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: to like Tennessee. I can't remember, so I guess that's
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: those are two different stories. So if you live in Louisiana,
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  Speaker 1: I like to know the effect because I know they
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: said it wasn't as bad as they thought, but I
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: couldn't really get a pinpoint of the damage. And I
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: want to know what happened in Missouri. Okay, okay, uh,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: let's talk about the coastline. Yeah, and we didn't mention,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: by the way, um hurricanes too, tsunamis. Yeah, tsunamis hurricanes
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: big problems um as far as creating flood conditions. But yeah,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: the coastline Um, you're talking about levees and dams. They
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: fall into man made ways of diverting water to other
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: people's problems. Um, And we've figured out ways of I guess,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: protecting our beautiful coastlines from mother Nature. And that's building walls,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: basically walls. It's like, have your worst waves, You're not
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: gonna erode this beach. But the problem is is the
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: whole process of erosion is part of creating and keeping
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: beaches healthy. Yeah and beautiful. Yes. I remember I used
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: to go to Hunting Island, South Carolina when I was
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: a kid, and my mom went not too long ago,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: and she said that they have actually, like the whole
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: coastline is different now. For when I was a kid,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: they had they had to move a lighthouse inland because
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: it had eroded so much. But they just, you know,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: they let it happen because it is a natural part
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: of beaches, and it's a natural like oceans, beaches, rivers,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: they're all dynamic, right exactly. You know, they're all gonna
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: move earth and water and that's just the way it's
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: supposed to be. And when humans step into try and
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: prevent that, bad things can happen. Well, and we try
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: to prevent it because we tend to settle near water.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: It's um, each transportation it puts living on the beaches nice.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Well yeah yeah, but I mean even with the river too,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: it's like there's your crop land. Yeah, there's your easy
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: access to irrigation, easy transportation, um food water obviously, so
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: we need to live near water. And then when these
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: natural processes happened and takes our houses the way, we're like, okay,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: let's figure out how to how to solve this. And
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: sometimes the solution is just kind of exacerbates the problem,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: that's right, or creates a new one. Yeah, So we
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: just gotta figure things out. I think we're working on it. Uh.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: This is one really cool part I thought was you
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: always see how you know a flood, floodwaters will wash
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: a car away or something, and it doesn't even look
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: like that much water, and you think, you know, I
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: drop my I drive my truck like through a river
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: in the North Georgia Mountains and you just plow right
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: through it and that's like twice as deep and really
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: rushing river that nature take that nature. But the difference
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: here is I thought, this is really interesting, is is
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: water what water wants? To do is level itself out.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: So when you've got a lot of water from a
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: flood in a place where there's previously no water at all,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: it's gonna want to find its level as soon as
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: possible by rushing really hard. So it's just gonna be
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: a lot more force than the steady stream of a river.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: It's really easy as that, and that's all there is too.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: So like a couple of feet of water can wash
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: a car away, two ft two ft of water in
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: a flood condition where it's rushing from one from a
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: higher higher level to a lower level it's balance out
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: can wash a car away, and six inches under those
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: conditions can knock you human off his or her feet.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: And that's how people die in a flood. Well, I
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: think half half of the deaths associated with most floods
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: are from people trying to ford a rushing um uh
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: water in their car, sill away in their car. That's
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: the problem, because you get carried out and you're in
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: your car and you're trapped, and that's that. That's that.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: It's very sad. Flash flooding the most dangerous of all floods. Yeah,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: this jogged my memory when they was talking about um,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Big Thompson Canyon, Colorado. I think we might have hit
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: on that at some point because it jogged my memory too.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: You want do you want to talk about? Well, yeah,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy six, July one, Colorado was celebrating its
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: centennial and at about five or six o'clock it started
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: rain and it was a really weird thunderstorm that didn't move.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: It just planted itself for four hours over Big Thompson Canyon.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Ranged twelve inches in four hours, and that's how much
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: the area gets in a year usually. I mean, yeah,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: that's crazy. In four hours and uh, a twenty ft
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: high uh rush of river going about fourteen miles an
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: hour by nine pm washed through the canyon, and it
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: was so like out of nowhere, which is what a
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: flash flood is. It's not like, hey, you know, with
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: the Johnstone flood, they had warnings even though people didn't
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: heed them, and most of the times you know a
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: flood's coming. But with a flash flood, they were just
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: like trapped. Plus they're they're also just happened to be
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: thousands of campers down there celebrating this centennial of Colorado.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: It was well, the perfect storm, but the river that
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: feeds the canyon. Normally Big Thompson River um is apparently
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: normally pretty slow moving, the old Big Titty, but because
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: of this flash flood, it was dumping two hundred and
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: thirty three thousand gallons eight d two thousand liters of
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: water into the canyon per second per second, so that's
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: a lot. So basically, a flash flood is like a flood,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: but it's even more concentrated and the water is moving
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: even more violently. That's crazy. I got the number between
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: a hundred and thirty nine to a hundred and forty
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: five dead, five were never seen again, four hundred cars,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: four houses, and forty million, which would be about a
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty million today. And interestingly, and three years ago,
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: this one guy was found alive in Oklahoma that they
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: thought died. He got he left town that morning and
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: like didn't tell people, and I think they were that
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: came up in records and he was like, no, I'm
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: I'm out here in Oklahoma. I'm just fine. I didn't
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: he didn't even realize that he was on the death list.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: But they still room every July thirty one, they still
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: pay remembrance. Obviously, in Colorado Um, there's also I mean,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: you think about cars being washed away and people being
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: knocked off their feet and being flooded in canyons, But
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: there's also a lot of problems with flooding after the fact,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Like a flood brings with it a lot of silt
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: and mud and nastiness, sewage, sewage, and um. When the
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: floodwaters recede once again, Um, all that stuff sticks around.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Apparently Florence, Italy suffered a pretty big flood on the
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: um Arno River, right, Yeah, And Florence, of course is
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: one of the great repositories of Renaissance art, and a
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: lot of the repository in that repository were basements and
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: for stories, and that stuff got flooded. And apparently they
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: got a lot of the stuff back to at least
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: good quality, a lot of it, but they were I
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: looked up. There were six hundred thousand tons of mud
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: and sewage after they left, fourteen thousand works of art
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: and a hunt um sorry, three to four million books
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: and manuscripts and records. And I don't know how many
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: of the fourteen thousand were restored, but I bet it
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: wasn't you know what I'm saying. Yeah, because a lot
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: of stuff was completely destroyed. That's awful, very sad. At
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: least invading hordes didn't set it on fire on purpose.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Also killed about a hundred people, which you always hear
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: about the artwork, like I had to really research to
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: find the amount of deaths. Really Yeah, well, well not
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: that much research, but a few extra clicks, I guess. Um,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: and then disease is another big problem to you said, sewage, chemical, um,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: the deceased, All of this is mixed together and albany.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: That probably was not a fun soup. No, So if
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: you are if your area is flooded, you want to
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: basically boil any water that you're going to drink or
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: drink bottle of water. Um, get one of those one
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: uh the water manufacturers that sucks the water vapora of
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: the ambient air and converts it to bottled water. Did
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: you hear about the Nettie pot deaths? Recently? These two
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: people in Louisiana died and they believe it was from
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: using the Nettie pot, which I use on a daily basis,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: and it got they got a brain eating amiba into
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: their nasal passage from using contaminated water to Nettie with
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: and my friend. You know, I've been netting for like
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: six years every day, and my friends drew bout that
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: I would do that. Who are you? It's like, come on,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: did your friend know that he sounds like that? When
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: you say I was, I was aping him. He sounded
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: much more intelligent than that. But I'm not gonna stop knitting. Well,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: you have to boil the water, at least yourself that
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: you're going to do that, chuck brainy eating ambo would
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: not look good on you. I'll take my chances, all right, Okay,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: I guess that's it. I got nothing else. I got
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: nothing out flooding. Do you want to call out for
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: anything in particular? Yeah? Sure, if you live in Big
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: Canyon or or Johnstown or a story. Yeah, I bet
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: you got some some personal anecdotes the family member. Man,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: yeah you can. Oh wait, wait, we haven't done less
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: your mail yet. Man, we're about to jump the gap.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Were you? I thought you're about doing that. It's about
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: like give our email. Well, if you want to learn
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: more about floods, you can type in floods in the
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: search bar at how stuff works dot com. And I
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: said search bar, So it's Chuck's turn for a listener mail, Josh,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this uh request for Adam to save
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: birds before this table? Your request of what request from
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Adam to help save birds before the bowl? He has
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: he has a thing going on and it ends at
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: this bowl, so we want to get it out. I
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: come to humbly beg a favor. Guys. He said he
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: could apply us with beer if his loyalty is not sufficient.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: In this case it is sufficient. I don't know beer
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: canunail my NGOs fundraiser needs a plug. We are the
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Alamos wild Lands Alliance. I'm the research director there and
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: we are trying to create a reserve in a rare habitat.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: We also do research and education in a remote part
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: of northwest Mexico. We run a biological field station called
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: the Navopatia Field Station. You can check us out on
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Facebook and our website is www dot Alamos wild Lands
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: dot org. That is a l a MS wild Ds
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: dot org and it's a US based nonprofit. It's very small,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: run by volunteers. Most of you says, run by birds,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: run by birds and put the second in a row.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: They're doing a fundraiser called the Bird a thon and
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: it's like a walkathon, but instead of miles walked, people
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: get pledges for the amount of bird species they see
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: in a given day. My team had a hundred and
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: sixty three last year one day. It's pretty good. It
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: is a fun way to raise money for conservation in
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: a place that is unique and rare. That runs from
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: January February. We often have a Super Bird Saturday when
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: most people go out the day before the Bowl, which
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: is a football game played here in the United States,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: American football and not here a people, not soccer or
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: the rest of the world football. Yes, uh more. Teams
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: are always welcome. We have at least eight now, though
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: some have yet to register, and anyone can start their
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: own team or just donate. It's really easy and it's
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: on our website. The money goes to a good cause
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: is text deductible. And here's something sad, josh uh, the
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: environment and animals only get about two percent of charitable
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: giving worldwide. I have to be honest, I'm surprised that
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: the environment and animals And he says, yeah, so humans
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: get the other nine percent. I guess so, which, you know,
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: charitable giving us good no matter what. But forget about
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: our free creatures. Attached our some pictures of my team,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: the Luca Doors. We wear masks and capes while birding,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: so it kind of ties him nicely with the podcast
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: we did on Mexican Rensity, which was not this one.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: Can we post that picture? I don't know, I'll check
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: and uh then he has His wife's team is called
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: the Boobies, named after the blue footed booby, a common
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: bird that we have down here. Regardless, guys, thanks to
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: both of you for helping to make being smart cool again.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: So please go check out www dot Alamos wild Lands
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: dot org and sign up and sponsor someone for this
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: bird of fon Super Bird Saturday. Get a team together,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: help these guys out. That's awesome. Tet Uh did you
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: mention the s Bowl? Did you use the actual name?
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Because I think we can get in trouble for that
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: for saying I don't think you should say it. Really yeah,
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: we'll find out. How can we get in trouble? Like
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: apparently they actively sue people who use that word, like
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: even mentioning it. Like remember the Simpsons, they never mentioned
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: what they're where they were going when they went to
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: that huge football game and Dolly Parton the episode that
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: Dolly Parton is on. Now I have the halftime of
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: my life. Yeah, all right, so we can just beat
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: that out and people be like, smol, what's that right? Exactly? Okay, Well,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: if you have an NGO that you think we'd like
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: to plug, we're happy to do that from time to time. Um,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: you can tweet to us, especially if it's a bird
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: ngo at s y s K podcast. Um, you can
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: send us uh some sort of message on Facebook at
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: Facebook dot com slash stuff you should know, and you
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: can send us an email. Remember now to Stuff podcast
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: at Discovery dot com. How do you? For more on
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics, is it how Stuff
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: works dot com. To learn more about the podcast, click
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: on the podcast icon in the upper right corner of
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: our homepage. The How Stuff Works iPhone app has arrived.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: Download it today on iTunes. Brought to you by the
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you