Meaning

• To die from suffocation while immersed in water or other fluid.

• To kill by suffocating in water or another liquid.

• To be flooded: to be inundated with or submerged in (literally) water or (figuratively) other things; to be overwhelmed.

• To inundate, submerge, overwhelm.

• (usually passive) To obscure, particularly amid an overwhelming volume of other items.

  "The answers intelligence services seek are often drowned in the flood of information they can now gather."