Definition of "swamping"

Before the report’s arrival on Friday, the consequences of global warming had been epically imagined — New Orleans-style swampings by superstorms, the specter of an Arctic meltdown and a water gush that would block heat-toting currents in the Atlantic Ocean and trigger an abrupt European cool-down.

2007 February 4, Andrew C. Revkin, “A Disaster Epic (in Slo-Mo)”, in New York Times‎