WOW!! Slept late and just woke up this afternoon (it's now 1 PM)... Checking the local news, I just found out they called in the National Guard for my county!! Things here at my home haven't been that bad; we've had rain, rain, and more rain, but it's had no real impact on me, personally. (If you check the google map link I included above, you'll see my house is built in a nice flat spot on top of the mountain, with no streams right on top of us. My ancestors chose an EXCELLENT place to settle and build, hundreds of years ago, before there was any competition on real estate here.)
Others, however, are learning a bit about the natural difficulties of poor geographic judgement in building homes. Take one mountain here, another there, and the spot in the middle. Is JUST BEGGING FOR TROUBLE!
/\ <--- pretend this is a mountain.
/\ /\ <--- now, rain on top of them and tell me where the rain in the middle goes...
Runoff from both sides fills the valley VERY QUICKLY, and mudslides and flash floods are natural occurrences. Locals know not to build in these areas, but outsiders (usually city folks from places like New York) will buy land, bulldoze a hole into the side of the hill, and then be UTTERLY SHOCKED when nature doesn't like their home placement.
For the first time EVER, the issue has finally gotten so bad, THEY CALLED IN THE NATIONAL GUARD, to basically save these people from themselves. I honestly can't understand why ANY insurance company would cover these idiots, and I can't understand why ANYONE would rebuild in a spot that nature has already PROVED to be a bad idea, but they do. Over and over and over again...
I swear, I just don't understand people anymore. They just never seem to learn from their life experiences any more.