The problem we have in the North East is structural and geography , giant old growth trees and lots of pavement . We
sit at the foot of the Catskills.
Quite often we get hit by the remnants of these big storms and have major flooding and power outages .
It takes approximately 2 weeks for the water to drain down from the mountains into our area . For the most part it is not noticeable , however if the ground is already saturated with rain , it does not take much rain for a flash flood to occur.
When the ground is saturated it does not take much wind to blow these trees over . 35 MPH will do it .
The missus ran the local emergency planning effort for many years . I was involved with coming up with remedies for the school . These kind of events are expected and dealt with as best as possible . Unfortunately we need a modern day Hans Brinker .
An additional problem in our area is the train beds run perpendicular to a dam and parallel to the rivers. If the damn got hit by terrorists there is literally nothing to stop the water for 20 miles. In case a like this storm the train bed floods quickly and then flows into the rivers which are already high from the run off from pavement .
The only real solution is to restrict building in flood zones , which is not possible given the age and density of the Northeast .
