More than 15 inches of rain fell in a number of places in the path of these storms. The heavy rain and resulting flooding caused considerable damage and tragically, some lives were lost. Flooding has also made the news this summer in a few far-away places, especially in Asia. Typhoon Stella has just swept over Japan, causing widespread flooding. High water and rampaging rivers have killed more than a thousand people in northern India.
Thousands are dead or missing.
Perhaps the worst flooding, though, has occurred in central China, where monsoon rains continued unabated for much of the summer. The area that's drained by the Yangtze River, the third largest river in the world, has been particularly hard-hit. Over 50 million acres have been flooded this summer, so concerns about food shortages and starvation are very real. To prevent rivers from flooding their banks, typically a system of dikes or levees are constructed, whereby dirt is piled up to form an artificial barrier. Sand bags are added to the dikes when rivers are so engorged that the dikes are incapable of holing-back the rising waters.