What happens when plants are overwatered
It certainly can, if you have flooding, or even huge amounts of rain. Plants that are overwatered by rain (or too much watering) can suffer root rot or may even fall over because the roots can’t hold in the soil anymore.
Obviously, if you are overwatering, you can just stop, but when the water comes from storms or storm surges, that doesn’t work so well. However, one thing you CAN do is turn off any automatic watering systems until things dry out a bit. Don’t water by hand, either - let your plants recover.
In some cases, plants can be moved to containers or a higher area of ground. If not, try to turn the soil a bit around the plants, to give them more oxygen - root rot occurs because the excess water does not allow easy entry of oxygen, necessary to the plant’s survival.
If you see a decline in your warm-season turf grass quality, such as areas becoming a general yellow, light green or brown color, and gradually thinning, this could a root rot disease in the lawn. Try to mow the grass so that only one third of the leaf tissue is removed during any one mowing event. This will give you more ‘leaf’ area to absorb the water. Aerating the lawn can also help.