Fleeing the flood or is a merely mud slide
Posted by Lee on November 9, 2009
I been accused of misusing the word flood when describing the inundation of mud into Valle Escondido in Boquete Panama. Perhaps Sam is correct and I stand corrected. The dictionary definition of flood below does specify “water” beyond its normal confines, not mud.
I credit the dictionary and those upset people in Valle Escondido for my new found wisdom.
flood |fləd|
noun
1 an overflowing of a large amount of water beyond its normal confines, esp. over what is normally dry land : in a thousand miles the flood destroyed every bridge | people uprooted by drought or flood | [as adj. ] a flood barrier.
• ( the Flood) the biblical flood brought by God upon the earth because of the wickedness of the human race (Gen. 6 ff.).
verb
1 [ trans. ] cover or submerge (a place or area) with water : the dam burst, flooding a small town | watching her father flood their backyard skating rink | [as n. ] ( flooding) a serious risk of flooding.
• [ intrans. ] become covered or submerged in this way : part of the vessel flooded | figurative Sarah’s eyes flooded with tears.
• (usu. be flooded out) drive someone out of their home or business with a flood : most of the families who have been flooded out will receive compensation.
• (of a river or sea) become swollen and overflow (its banks) : the river flooded its banks | [ intrans. ] the river will flood if it gets much worse.
ORIGIN Old English flōd, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch vloed and German Flut, also to flow .
Since mud is a mixture of soil and water I will restate. Valle Escondido was not flooded in the biblical sense, but many houses and parts of the valley were inundated by a mixture of water and soil, aka mud.
The video of the creek in Valle Escondido overflowing it’s banks, during the inundation has been removed from Youtube, I suspect because of the semantic error of using the word flood? I am sorry nothing overflowed it’s banks, because the proof has evaporated.
inundate |ˈinənˌdāt|
verb [ trans. ] (usu. be inundated)
flood : the islands may be the first to be inundated as sea levels rise.
• figurative overwhelm (someone) with things or people to be dealt with : we’ve been inundated with complaints from listeners.
DERIVATIVES
inundation |ˌinənˈdā sh ən| noun
ORIGIN late 16th cent.: from Latin inundat- ‘flooded,’ from the verb inundare, from in- ‘into, upon’ + undare ‘to flow’ (from unda ‘a wave’ )
Comments
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The Quebrada DID NOT over flood its banks. The reason water was in between the condo’s and the river was because a tube behind the condo’s had become filled with mud and water from the canal which overflowed the road and into the low area. I am not trying to make light of the situation as the mud slides are very serious.
It is an important difference, especially to those people who have homes on the creek and may one day want to sell them. I have lived in Boquete for 12 years and been in Valle Escondido for 10 and have never seen the river come out of its banks. Maybe some day it will but so far it has not.
Mud slide, yes; flood, not so much. As Sam stated, the ‘flood-like’ situation was caused by the tube. My mother lives in Valle Escondido and I’ve spent 6+ years living there, and not once has the river reached over its level– and believe me, we have had some heavy storms.
I cannot testify to what happened in Valle Escondido but here in Jaramillo Arriba we had a flood complete with lots of mud. 3 of the culverts that the Quebrada near my two houses flows through plugged causing the Quebrada to overflow in at least 3 places. There was extensive mud damage and, as Lee has said, one lane of the Jaramillo Arriba road floated away. Also the bridge Bob Wolfe build over the Quebrada floated off its moorings and had to be dragged out of the river.
Why the equivocation? This was a textbook flash flood. An extreme amount of water dumped upon Valle Escondido and the mountains surrounding it overwhelmed the normal rivers and streams creating new temporary waterfalls and poured down the valley walls causing multiple mudslides. Thankfully the rains stopped quickly before more damage was caused.
flash flood
–noun
a sudden and destructive rush of water down a narrow gully or over a sloping surface, caused by heavy rainfall.
“flash flood.” Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 22 Nov. 2009. .