Vocabu-lesson

In all the hurricane coverage, I've come across the word "inundated" a lot, as in "Since the levee broke, New Orleans has been inundated." Now I always thought to inundate just meant to overwhelm in general, so I found it odd that in every single corner, people were using this word to describe the disaster down there. I figured there must be something to it, so I looked it up:

inundate:

1. To cover with water, especially floodwaters.
2. To overwhelm as if with a flood; swamp.

So there it is. Inundate.