Making flood warnings more meaningful

The need to improve our means of communicating flood warnings to local residents—especially when the electricity goes out, as it frequently does during flooding events—is a perennial concern in the river valley, and one we were glad to see the Upper Delaware Council (UDC) address anew at its latest meeting (see page 5). But the point we found of particular interest in the discussion initiated by Highland’s Andrew Boyar was a focus not just on reaching people, but on making sure the information they receive is of practical use. As Boyar, Cochecton’s Larry Richardson and others pointed out, it is one thing to be told that the river will crest at 16 feet and another to know what that means for any particular property or public space.

As important as general warnings to be vigilant are, or even specific information about the projected height of the flood crest, it’s the translation of that data into what that means for particular places where people live, work and travel that would provide the maximum value. Should we move the lawn furniture? Start the basement pump? Evacuate entirely? And even if our own property will be fine, it would be helpful to know what roads and other public areas might be flooded.

Some anecdotal evidence exists with regard to the implication of various flood stages in our area, and is already available online. The Middle Atlantic River Forecast Center has a website that gives fairly detailed flood-related information for hamlets near river gages, e.g. Callicoon and Barryville. (Go to water.weather.gov/ahps/ and click on the map to see a close-up of the river corridor; then click on the Barryville or Callicoon green circle to get the most detailed information.) Scroll down on the Callicoon page and you will note, for instance, a “flood impacts” section which says that at 12 feet, some homes on the New York side north of the bridge in Callicoon start to flood, and that at 13 feet, the Bank of America parking lot starts to flood.

But there are hundreds of businesspeople and homeowners who live and work along the Upper Delaware for whom these morsels of information are hardly adequate. What is needed is an extension of this kind of thing: which particular houses would be flooded? And what other houses start to flood at 15 feet or 16 feet? And what about all the places besides Callicoon and Barryville? What is needed, ideally, is a map that would show where the water line falls on which properties, public and private, at different flood stages, up and down the Upper Delaware.

Doing a little research, we found that such a concept already exists, and is known as “inundation mapping.” More than that, the Delaware River Basin Commission, via the United States Geological Survey (USGS) is already engaged in a project of mapping selected spots on the main stem of the Delaware River from Trenton, NJ to Port Jervis, NY. You can see the results so far at www.nj.gov/drbc/Flood_Website/floodinf.htm, along with a host of other useful flood-related links.

The interactive online maps allow users to enter different flood stages and see exactly where the water line will go—but only for relatively limited sections of the shoreline. The UDC might consider pushing to have a similar project completed for selected Upper Delaware locations, but even if this could be accomplished, it would still leave out information for vast stretches of the river.

But while technology (and budgets) may not have reached the point where complete inundation mapping is possible, there might be cruder methods of amassing useful data correlating flood levels and particular points on land. Damascus, PA resident Bernie Handler, in a recent informal conversation, said that he had noted that his own local zoning officer seemed to have a very good idea of which areas would be flooded at what gage levels, and suggested that even interviewing zoning officers up and down the river might yield useful information. Individual river towns, or a group of towns coordinated by the UDC, might form task forces to collect this type of evidence and make it available to the public. It’s the type of thing potentially affected landholders in particular should have available in hard copy form, so that even if the electricity is out and the only information they can get is via their car radio, they can see exactly what “16 feet” means for them.

However the UDC moves forward on this, we congratulate them for addressing the issue and look forward to seeing some interesting solutions to this problem.

(Not a scientific poll)

Last week's results:

Do you listen to radio stations that carry lots of local content?

All the time: 69.23%

Once in a while: 23.08%

Never: 7.6%

Dr. Punnybone

Death's Door