Cob: Flooding questions

[Amanda Peck]

Nashville  TN when I lived there had areas that were notorious for flooding 
because of upstream development and earth moving in subdivisions.  And the 
much-dammed Tennessee river stranded the "city" of Clifton Tennessee for 
days this spring. (The smaller, undammed Buffalo only flooded us in for a 
couple of hours).  So I share your concerns, although 3 feet of manure-laden 
water sounds absolutely frightful.

Not only consider an outside flood as a source of problems, but also an 
INSIDE one--broken pipes, overflowing washing machine, and so on.  So it may 
be worth putting your stem-wall quite a ways up there to protect from both.

...................
Rachel asks:

I hope I'm not being a pest here, but we just had a 100 yr flood here in 
Vegas and it has prompted some questions.  A friend of mine (the same one 
who wanted to build the goat shelter) and her neighbors, who were NOT in a 
flood zone (and therefore couldn't have purchased flood insurance if they'd 
wanted to) got flooded because nearby highway building messed up the flow of 
water so it didn't go where it was supposed to.  She had water a foot high 
on her walls for five or six hours, one neighbor had water, mixed with 
manure from a neighboring farm, 3 feet high.

I have two questions:
Would standing water for several hours be enough to collapse the walls of a 
cob home?

How cautious should you be with building?  I suppose a stemwall several feet 
high would definitely protect from this kind of situation, but is it worth 
the extra work when you have no reason to expect to need it?  How paranoid 
should you be when planning for eventualities?

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