Question about flash floods

[The Backlash Cometh]

I'm seeing these incredible photos of people trapped in their cars in the middle of a flash flood. It looks worse than what you see when the Mississippi floods over. Don't these people know they live in a flood zone? Isn't there some kind of warning system that the community can come up with? Anyone who lives downstream of a mountain knows that flooding can occur an hour or two after a heavy rain.

[kestrel91316]

1. Flash floods just love to hit way downstream where people have no

idea that a huge downpour has hit miles and miles upstream and hours before. You often can't even see the clouds that produced the downpour, that's how far away they can be. We see this in the desert southwest.

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. We have fire rangers out in national forests, why not flood ranger outposts

along the edge of a mountain?

This is just insane.

[kestrel91316]

4. Here in the US, the National Weather Service routinely issues

flash flood watches and flash flood warnings, and they do a very good job of it, but pproperty still gets damaged and sometimes people still get hurt or killed.

http://www.weather.gov/

Map has color coding for flash flood watch AND flood warning. The NWS sends alerts out to broadcast media and they broadcast it. I have a clock radio at home that has NWS warnings complete with an alarm buzzer that scares the hell out of me AND my cats when it goes off. What else do you want?

We live in an imperfect world.

Not sure if Aus has a similar service in place, or how accurate or effective it is.

[End Of The Road]

3. Drivers don't know how easily they can be swept away.

Happens all the time here in Central Texas, where we have lots of practice with flash floods.

Many (but not enough) low water crossings have gates (like railroad Xing) that come down to keep motorists from entering a flooded spot. But nooooo... some people go around them anyway (and die).

Many people don't realize that their car can be swept off the road by just a few inches of fast-moving water.

But, that said, in a bad downpour you are often in trouble before you see it coming, and that's especially true at night.