I have always wondered what would happen in this case. In our area in 1996, we had a huge flood. Many basements went under. It was a while ago, so I don't remember much of what happpened. If the panel is on, and the water is contaminated enough to conduct, wouldn't this short the mains causing the PoCo OCPD to trip?
In the same flood, in one neighborhood, a poco pole transformer was hit by lightning. This took out power to the whole neighborhood, causing sump pumps to stop and basements to flood. I got home to find that a friend of mine had borrowed every extension cord I owned and was using them to run sump pumps in that neighborhood. It was, umm, lets say, interesting.
