Flood warning today

Wind and water are big today.  I've gotten 1.6 inches of rain in the last 24 hours, and its still raining.  The river that forms my north property line is expected to reach flood stage, 14 feet, sometime later today and then recede.  It's at 11.3 feet now, and rising.  The local volunteer fire department siren went off about 30 minutes ago.  When I hear that siren I wonder what they're responding to.  The video was taken at the red dot location on the map picture, below

river at 11.3 from bruce king on Vimeo.

 The picture above is taken at the red-dot location shown below.  The video below that was taken at the blue dot location around Nov 1, when the water was lower as an example. 

I spent a good part of my 20s guiding white water trips all over the northwest and lower BC, and I have nothing but respect for water like this.  Normally the banks are 10' higher than the top of the water, but today, that whole area is full, and it's flowing fast.

If you were to fall into this river, it would be very difficult to get out; the water is flowing through the trees and brush at the top of the bank, and the basic issue is that you'd get pinned against a tree or bushes or a logjam as  you tried to approach the shore.  you'd be safer in the current, but if you're in the current, you're going to go for a long way.  it's going at 8-10mph, and that's very, very fast.  A good swimmer can swim at 2mph

I walk the river bank every couple of hours, and watch the USGS gauge reports so that I can see what 11.3 on the gauge looks like, or 11.5, or 14 -- which it's supposed to reach today.

The house, buildings and animals are well above the flood at this stage; to have water around the house you'd need 15.2 or better -- which this river can reach, but it requires a vast amount of water, more than we've got today, to do that.  As the river rises it floods and widens, so a 1' rise could require 4 to 8 times the water volume, and another 1' would require even more.