"You'll have heard how the city once ended in fire, and around these parts, it threatens to end in ice every few years or so. But once, not too long ago, Chicago flirted with ending in water, an entirely preventable man-made inundation that few saw but everybody felt – a two-billion-dollar sucker punch tsunami that weighed in among the dozen most costly floods in American history." [more inside]
posted by AceRock on Oct 15, 2009 - 18 comments

410mm of rain fell over Northern Luzon, Philippines on September 25, 2009, leaving much of the country's capital and the surrounding regions submerged in water, reaching up to nine feet in some areas. As of latest coverage, over 100 were killed and 340,000 affected by the Typhoon. This amount has been the highest recorded amount of rainfall since the country's weather Bureau started recording rainfall levels in 1967, and exceeds the rainfall level of Hurrican Katrina (380mm). Two more tropical depressions could be under way in the midst of Ondoy's wake. As of now, there are still families stranded on the rooftops of their homes without food and potable water. Most relief aid is coming from volunteers. As for the country's president? She used the Php800M(USD16.8M) emergency fund for foreign trips. See the damage. International News Coverage: NYT Reuters CNN BBC [more inside]
posted by drea on Sep 27, 2009 - 23 comments

Curt Flood's suit of Baseball. In 1970, baseball's best center fielder, Curt Flood filed a lawsuit against Major League Baseball and its reserve clause.
posted by klangklangston on Sep 15, 2009 - 61 comments

Environmental disaster in Tennessee. On Monday, 5.4 million cubic yards (over 1 billion gallons; the Exxon Valdez oil spill was about 11 million gallons) of toxic coal ash sludge broke through an earthen retaining wall of a holding pond at TVA’s Kingston power plant, damaging 12 homes and covering over 400 acres up to six feet deep.
posted by homunculus on Dec 26, 2008 - 59 comments

Gunson looked up to see a breach appearing in the top of the dam. Feeling a sudden, violent, vibrating of the ground beneath his feet, he quickly scampered up the side of the embankment, luckily just in time, as a few seconds later there was a total collapse of a large section of the dam, unleashing a colossal mountain of water which thundered down the valley and on to the unsuspecting population below. For two hundred and fifty people who lived in Sheffield and the hamlets in the valley below the dam, this was to be their last night on Earth. Six hundred and fifty million gallons of water roared down the Loxley valley and into Sheffield, wreaking death and destruction on a horrific scale. [more inside]
posted by xchmp on Dec 9, 2008 - 6 comments

Last week, following torrential rains, Northern and Central Vietnam suffered their worst flooding in the past 25 years, killing more than 70 people and devastating buildings and crops. Still, life goes on in the inundated Hanoi neighborhoods, and water won't prevent people from walking/driving/boating around the city, getting engaged, marrying and fishing. These folks got their car back and the scenic Ninh Binh region looks like the Ha Long bay. By the way, Google understands vietnamese now.
posted by elgilito on Nov 7, 2008 - 22 comments

The UK's national risk register is made public. It is kept updated by the secret squirrels in the Cabinet Office, and was previously kept under wraps. Pandemic flu and flooding beat out terrorism as the major risks facing the UK at the moment. Both are seen as less likely than a terrorist attack, but more devastating. The full pdf has a chart on page 7 showing the main risks on a grid.
posted by athenian on Aug 8, 2008 - 18 comments

A recently divulged casualty of the Iowa floods (previously covered on Mefi here) is the Mighty Wurlitzer organ at the Paramount Theater. The pictures are pretty awful, and the video is even worse. If you grew up in Cedar Rapids any time in the last 80 years, you'll have heard the Wurlitzer on at least one occasion. Cedar Rapidians are vowing to "Return and Rebuild". [more inside]
posted by thanotopsis on Jun 20, 2008 - 5 comments

Hoping for the best for Mefites in eastern Iowa. I was CR born and raised, and just watching the feed on KCRG is ...disturbing. It looks like the height of the Cedar River is estimated at 25.4 feet, and it hasn't crested yet. They've lost a railroad bridge downtown so far, and the news feed keeps tracking the rise of the river by standing outside the studio and watching the water approaching. [more inside]
posted by thanotopsis on Jun 12, 2008 - 53 comments

For decades, showman Tommy Bartlett ran a Wisconsin Dells "Thrill Show" featuring waterskiers performing all sorts of stunts on Lake Delton. His bumperstickers were on the station wagons of tens of thousands of families across the midwest. This summer, Lake Delton is no more.
posted by timsteil on Jun 9, 2008 - 38 comments

What if the Devil tricked a well-meaning computer developer into making a horrendous animal racing game? (cringeworthy YouTube link) Now we know! Yes, Cougar Interactive has a product for you. Zoo Race! The biblical flood is over, and with hardly any people around, what's Noah, God, and the animals gonna do? Why, RACE of course! The game features compelling voice work, top flight graphics, and of course... animals straddling on rockets. And to top it all off, God is the announcer! It was the best 2007 had to offer, and it's still available... so, like their web site says.. Buy the FUN game that the big game companies would not ever make. (as found at Kotaku) [more inside]
posted by tittergrrl on Jan 17, 2008 - 58 comments

In Chapter 3 of his 1999 Pulitzer Prize winning book The Control of Nature, John Mcphee describes the catastrophe from debris flows following wild fires in the Los Angeles area in 1978. [more inside]
posted by strangeleftydoublethink on Oct 23, 2007 - 8 comments

Weatherfilter: Widespread flooding in the UK leaves hundreds of thousands of homes without water and power. Extraordinary scenes of the floods command many of the front pages of Monday's newspapers. The Environment Agency has warned water levels are expected to exceed those of the devastating floods of 1947.
posted by chuckdarwin on Jul 23, 2007 - 56 comments

Kaskaskia: The western Illinois town stuck in eastern Missouri. First state capital, bustling economic center and a leading town in the state. That is, until the flood of 1881 cut a new river channel, destroying most of the town and leaving the remnants on the Missouri side of the Mississippi. Whether or not the disaster was due to a murdered lover's curse, the (remaining) residents petitioned that the state line be kept along the older riverbed. The town's population, once about 7000, now consists of a meager nine. [wiki]
posted by luftmensch on Mar 30, 2007 - 11 comments

Photos of Paris during the 1910 flood. More. Yet more.
posted by monju_bosatsu on Jan 5, 2007 - 19 comments

And that's why you always buy the loss damage waiver when you rent a car. Man flies to Seattle, rents a PT Cruiser, drives to Olympic National Park to camp. Then one of the wettest months in regional history happens. The road washes out. While he and his companion are rescued, the car remains in the park, accruing rental charges. Rental company cuts him a deal. After 43 days and $871, the car is retrieved after emergency road repairs, and it's back in service at Sea-Tac.
posted by dw on Jan 5, 2007 - 31 comments

Ancient tsunami devastated Mediterranean possible root of flood myths and current major religious belief.
posted by Kickstart70 on Nov 30, 2006 - 34 comments

Some call FEMA's administration of federal flood insurance and disaster relief illogical and illegal, although you won't find that in FEMA's recent summary of Katrina, which reveals that $15.3 billion dollars in federal flood insurance claims have been paid. That's quite a bit more than the National Flood Insurance Fund's budget, and you may recall that payouts didn't go smoothly. Still, having federal flood insurance, as opposed to relying on disaster relief, has proven its worth during the rebuilding process. Certainly Katrina was an extraordinary phenomenon, unlikely to be repeated any time soon. Perhaps that's why the annual disaster relief budget is smaller this year.
posted by owhydididoit on Aug 22, 2006 - 11 comments

Flash flood! A New Orleans Times Picayune flash animation of exactly how, and where, and when the city of New Orleans and surrounding areas flooded during Hurricane Katrina. Here's the accompanying article. Even as a local, I had no idea how weak the levee systems were. And apparently still are. Here's some more info from a local grassroots group fighting for better levee protection.
posted by ab3 on May 18, 2006 - 18 comments

Mascots helping Mascots High schools across America have witnessed the devastation brought about by several recent natural disasters, such as Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. An outpouring of sympathy and concern, and a desire to help, have come forth from high schools wanting to assist those in need. To enable schools to help other schools, the National Federation of State High School Associations has initiated a fundraising program called the Mascot Adoption Program.
posted by ColdChef on Mar 13, 2006 - 3 comments

Newsreels [Windows Media] from the Flood of 1953 in the Netherlands.
posted by Wolfdog on Sep 20, 2005 - 7 comments

New Orleans Flood in Your City Map overlays of the New Orleans flood over various US cities.
posted by kirkaracha on Sep 8, 2005 - 43 comments

Our story begins with a flood and the theme continues throughout our literature. On this wet, wet planet of beings who depend on water for survival, deluge is an undeniably universal experience. With the help of a much-maligned organization, the literature grows...
posted by mds35 on Sep 8, 2005 - 4 comments

A toxic landfill site on which low-income housing was built in central New Orleans is now under floodwaters with the potential to pollute and contaminate portions of the Gulf Coast. In the 1940s and 1950s, the site was routinely sprayed with DDT, but in 1962 some 229,300 cubic metres of excess fill was removed because subsurface toxic fires kept erupting (and got the site known as "Dante's Inferno"). According to the editor of Hazardous Waste magazine, the site -- now under water -- will almost inevitably leach toxic effluent into the floodwaters, with the potential of inflicting unpredictable damage on the coast, and those that live there -- a possible environmental catastrophe. Tests by the EPA in the 1980s and 90s found 149 chemicals - 44 of which are known carcinogens. Among the toxic substances found were arsenic, lead, mercury, barium, and other organic compounds that are associated with pesticides and the burning of waste. Finally, what is the status of the Waterford 3 nuke plant just north of New Orleans, and what is the status of that plant's nuclear waste ? News reports say it sustained damage to 'off-site buildings' but what does that mean? Were those waste containment facilities?
posted by Babylonian on Sep 6, 2005 - 47 comments

From a New York journalist's description of the days after the flood:

I saw persons take watches from dead men's jackets and brutally tore finger-rings from the hands of women. The ruffians also climbed into the overturned houses and ransacked the rooms, taking whatever they thought valuable.

Sound familiar? This report about the Johnstown Flood was also filled with stories of "minority savegery", drunken Hungarians at the time that eventually turned out to be completely untrue or wildly exaggerated, such as the rescue helicoptor being shot at. also see previous mefi thread on LA looting here
posted by destro on Sep 3, 2005 - 36 comments

The Matrix shatters before the eyes of the nation (sorry, WMP link) -- and on Fox News! For those old enough to remember, it's so significant that Geraldo Rivera says of conditions in the New Orleans Convention Center, "it's like Willowbrook in there." (Rivera became famous in 1972 by exposing the horrendous conditions in a home for the mentally retarded called Willowbrook; finally, after decades of degrading himself, he remembers what his job is.) And Slate's Jack Shafer on "the rebellion of the talking heads" -- the refusal of reporters on the ground in New Orleans to regurgitate the official spin. [via TalkLeft]
posted by digaman on Sep 3, 2005 - 100 comments

Let the bush bashing begin. Funding for work on New Orleans' flood prevention system slowed to a trickle in 2003, and many people (long before Monday) claimed that was due to the Iraq war. [more inside]
posted by delmoi on Aug 30, 2005 - 181 comments

The Great Molasses Flood of 1919 in which 21 people died. (A picture of the devastation.) Another account from The Smithsonian. A present day picture of the site (scroll to the bottom). Brief accounts of two other molasses floods. And while we're at it, don't forget the London Beer Flood. Cheers.
posted by OmieWise on Jul 15, 2005 - 49 comments

Glastonbury this year is a bit wet
posted by Mwongozi on Jun 24, 2005 - 16 comments

PARK SERVICE STICKS WITH BIBLICAL EXPLANATION FOR GRAND CANYON The Bush Administration has decided that it will stand by its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah’s flood rather than by geologic forces, according to internal documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).
posted by Postroad on Jan 4, 2005 - 88 comments

Ice Age Floods Institute. In recent geological time immensely powerful, cataclysmic Ice Age Floods regularly swept across the Pacific Northwest. A proposed Ice Age Floods National Geological Trail is in the works. Virtual tour of Glacial Lake Missoula.
posted by stbalbach on Apr 19, 2004 - 6 comments

Night of the Johnstown Flood. "There was no larger news story in the latter nineteenth century after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The story of the Johnstown Flood has everything to interest the modern mind: a wealthy resort, an intense storm, an unfortunate failure of a dam, the destruction of a working class city, and an inspiring relief effort." Curious about about a line in this song, I went looking for information and found this story and this monument and the wonder/horror of this playground, where a giant force played with masses of iron, weighing scores of tons each, as a child might play with pebbles.
posted by weston on Jul 15, 2003 - 23 comments

Delta 2003 Yesterday the 1953 floods were commemorated in the Netherlands and a day earlier in the UK. What happened in 1953?
posted by ginz on Feb 2, 2003 - 5 comments

Nothing like a little religious tiff over God smiting Fargo to keep the editorial page busy. Start from the bottom, and work your way up, skipping the stories on baseball.
posted by nathan_teske on Jun 29, 2001 - 9 comments

8 people trapped in a cave have been reached by rescuers. Against advice, they went spelunking during bad weather and got trapped by rising water. After two days they're safe, but they're weak, hungry and dehydrated. Our heros weren't able to find anything to drink in the middle of a flood. (I bet they'd also need to be rescued from an escalator during a power failure.)
posted by Steven Den Beste on May 18, 2001 - 26 comments