Would you live in a flood plain?

[yg17]

I wouldn't. Nor would I live in hurricane country/tornado country ever again

Meh, I live in tornado alley and it's not so terrible. The thing about living in a hurricane country is that if a hurricane hits your city, you're pretty much screwed because they're so large and so powerful. Tornados are small, last a matter of minutes, and usually end up only hitting a small handful of houses. So if your house gets hit, you're screwed, but the chances of getting hit are extremely small. A few weeks ago, St. Louis got hit with tornados, and basically, a tornado touched down about 3 miles east of me and 3 miles west of me, I was right in the middle of them, but it never actually came close enough to my apartment to cause any damage. It just rained a lot and my power went out for 5 minutes and interrupted the DVD I was watching

 

[barkomatic]

Unless you live in a bunker built into the side of the mountain, I think most homes are vulnerable to some type of natural disaster. I don't think there are many parts of the U.S. where you don't need to worry about floods, tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires, or terrorist attacks.

There are far too many people in the world to leave large amounts of land vacant for long. Just get a good insurance policy that covers your particular situation.

 

[aristobrat]

The thing about living in a hurricane country is that if a hurricane hits your city, you're pretty much screwed because they're so large and so powerful.

I'd prefer that my house isn't wiped out by either a tornado or a hurricane, but if I have to chose, I'd prefer a hurricane because I'd at least have enough pre-warning to pack up some stuff and get the heck out of Dodge!

Thankfully Pat Robertson and his 700 Club are local to my city, and he prays away the big hurricanes for us.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

I don't think that's true. I live one mile from the beach, in a town literally surrounded by the water and the zone I'm in is considered moderate. I've not been forced to buy any flood insurance.

Again you might not be in the 100 year flood zone. That is based on models and now most of the time they get survey data from airplanes for elevation then put that into a computer model and that is how they figure out the flood plain.

Only time the coast floods is it is from a storm surge. If the computer models do not say you are in a flood plane then you are not in one. Often time the flood planes are closer to the creeks, rivers, and lakes than to the coast. Coast tends to only flood from hurricanes storm surges and that is all based on your elevation from sea level.
As for what they use for figuring your storm surge I believe it is a class 3 Hurricane. Class 4 and 5 rarely ever hit the coast because most of the time before they make land fall they become down graded to a class 3.
Now Hurricane Ike for example was a huge class 2 and had a much larger storm surge than normal normal and it did not over top the Galveston Sea Wall which is design for a class 3 but it was so large that it flood from the back side of the island which a normal hurricane would not do.