I keep seeing videos of people coming home to a burst pipe or the neighbors above them having a flood. The water pours down from the ceiling and from the light fixtures (lights are on), but the people walking around the house don’t get electrocuted.
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In order for current to flow it needs to be able to flow from somewhere to another place. All wires in your house are made up of two electrical conductors, one live and one neutral. This means that in an appliance current can flow from live and back to the neutral conductor. In case of failures it is possible for the current to flow from live to ground, possibly by using a human as a conductor. This is what could hurt you.
If your house is flooded then current can flow through the water. In general it takes the least path of resistance which is the shortest path. But because the wires and contacts include both the live and neutral wire, and often a separate ground wire, the shortest path of resistance is usually just over to the neutral or ground wire. Even if someone is standing next to the outlet the neutral wire is much closer and therefore most of the current flows there.
But even if you somehow had a situation where only the live conductor was in touch with the water then water is a very poor electrical conductor. It is much better then air but still very poor. Human flesh is actually a much better electrical conductor which is why the current goes through flesh rather then through the water. But the relatively low voltages you find in most homes have a very hard time going through the water at all. Even with the added salts from muddy water in the case of a flood which improves the electrical conductivity of the water it is unlikely to see shortcuts through much water. The standard household outlets even have the contacts far enough apart so they will not short between them even in water. The danger actually comes from the wires behind the outlet and the inside of switches and such. So you would have to be almost holding the live wire under water to get electrocuted.
And lastly modern building codes require that special RCD devices be fitted which cuts power to any circuit that have a fault before there is enough current to kill people through the fault. So even if you get a shock the power gets cut before it does any permanent damage. This is of course assuming your buildings electrical systems are up to code.
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