flood tide 
noun
1An incoming tide.During a flood tide, turbulent overfalls with strong up-and-down currents form at the north end....
- They are likely to feed right throughout the flood tide and probably for an hour on the ebb, then disappear.
- The jacks are quiet at Brunswick but bream and whiting are in healthy sizes throughout on a flood tide.
1.1An overwhelming quantity or amount of people or things: the trickle of tourists has become a flood tide...
- The Justice Department says it's overwhelmed by what it calls a flood tide of immigration cases.
- Pacificism grew during the 1920s, reaching a flood tide in the twelve years after the war.
- If this is to happen, it will pose fundamental questions about journalism and its diminishing ability to keep its head above the flood tide of propaganda when war begins.