The Flood Inundation Mapping Alert Network website, which planners call FIMAN, was updated this year. It incorporates information from state and federal agencies and other sources to monitor stream levels and predict when they will rise to flood stage in events such as the heavy rains expected from Tropical Storm Debby.
HOW DOES FIMAN WORK?
Anyone can use the site. One of the 2024 updates was to eliminate the need to log in or create an account to get information.
Those who want to get alerts about flood risks do need to create an account that allows individualized text messaging, but there is no charge to sign up.
Some of the information FIMAN uses was already available online from the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, but FIMAN combines it with data from the N.C. Department of Transportation’s flood warning system, local governments and some private agencies and makes it searchable by location and other categories.
Users go to the website and open the map of the state, where the locations of 585 gauges populate the screen as green dots. Any dot circled in another color — orange, red or purple — indicates a site where minor, moderate or major flooding is expected.
Clicking on a gauge can provide information about what the water level is now, when and how high it’s expected to peak, and the height of the water at its historical record flood. FIMAN also uses satellite mapping to show what development may be present near the streams.
Clicking on the menu and search bars allows users to enter particular addresses or search by towns or stream names to get information about potential flooding.
WHAT DOES FIMAN SAY ABOUT FLOODING FROM TROPICAL STORM DEBBY?
On Tuesday afternoon, FIMAN showed only two gauges where major flooding is expected as a result of the heavy rains forecasters say Debby will bring by Friday night: the Black River near Tomahawk, in rural Sampson County, and the Lumber River in Lumberton.
According to FIMAN, moderate flooding is expected on the Neuse River at Goldsboro, the Cape Fear River at Burgaw and the Little River at Spring Lake.
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