I had a front row seat for the 2011 mess. I really feel for the people displaced and they had such short notice. We had upwards of a week before the river went into flood stage, and the full areal inundation took weeks. In fact, the longer the flood lasted, the more levees failed and even towards the end there were fields and houses that everyone thought would be OK that still wound up flooded.
The granting of a pardon is an imputation of guilt, and the acceptance a confession of it.