Flood Inundation, Flood Depth, and High-Water Marks for Selected Areas in North Carolina from the October 2016 Flood

The passage of Hurricane Matthew through central and eastern North Carolina during October 7-9, 2016, brought heavy rainfall which resulted in major flooding. More than 15 inches of rain were recorded in some areas. Over 600 roads were closed including Interstates 95 and 40, and nearly 99,000 structures were impacted by floodwaters. Immediately after the flooding, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) documented 267 high-water marks (HWM), of which 254 were surveyed. The North Carolina Emergency Management documented and surveyed 353 HWMs. Using a subset of these HWMs, six flood-inundation maps were created in hard-hit communities. This data release contains the actual flood inundation polygons and flood-depth measurements made in the six selected river basins of North Carolina during October 2016. The file types contained in this data release are shape files, rasters, metadata, and images created by mapping software. Measurements were made in these six basins to document flood depth and assist in the estimation of the extent of flood-inundation area. The flood-inundation maps created from these measurements can be found in Musser and others (2017).