Don’t trust the Sheriff’s Dept. Tell your friend to trust his instincts.
I’m on a county line and during our last big flood, saw and heard LEOs and EMS a stone’s throw away on a street in the neighboring county telling people to evacuate. Saw videos of houses and businesses under water. Was monitoring the tv news that was non-stop on the floods. Our Sheriff’s Dept. told me several times there was no flood. We loaded up and headed to higher ground when the water got almost to the porch. The next morning someone’s kitchen cabinets were on our deck. A couple days later, even the water authority told me they weren’t flooding us out by opening the dam gates as I watched the water rising. Houses down at the low end of our street and other streets were totally under water. But, hey, no flooding here. Nope, no flooding. Nothing to worry about.
That’s what we told him, hook up the horse trailer and keep an eye out.