Chapter Hazard Analysis Overbank Flooding

2.2.Impact of Flooding

Past and future flood impacts are discussed in this section. Impacts are reviewed under four categories: impact on people (e.g., safety and health), damage to buildings, damage to critical facilities, and economic disruption (damage to businesses and infrastructure).

Safety: A car will float in less than 2 feet of moving water and can be swept downstream into deeper waters. This is one reason floods kill more people trapped in vehicles than anywhere else (see table). Victims of floods have often put themselves in perilous situations by ignoring warnings about travel or mistakenly thinking that a washed-out bridge is still there.

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Flood Related Deaths, Illinois and United States
	Vehicle		Outdoors		Indoors		Total
	IL	US	IL	US	IL	US	IL	US
1995		39	1	35		6	1	80
1996		79	2	39		13	2	131
1997	1	46		60		12	1	118
1998		75	1	40		21	1	136
1999		26	1	34		8	1	68
2000	3	24	1	13			4	37
2001	1	24		20		4	1	48
Total	5	313	6	241	0	64	11	618

Deaths are from river and flash floods. Most of the deaths are from flash floods. Source: National Weather Service
eople die of heart attacks, especially from exertion during a flood fight. Electrocution is a cause of flood deaths, claiming lives in flooded areas that carry a live current created when electrical components short out. Floods also can damage gas lines, floors, and stairs, creating secondary hazards such as gas leaks, unsafe structures, and fires. Fires are particularly damaging in areas made inaccessible to fire-fighting equipment by high water or flood-related road or bridge damage.

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During the February 21, 1997, flood, the Elgin Fire Depart­ment evacuated 47 people in boats. Thirty-nine people needed to stay in shelters provided by the Red Cross and Elgin Township.