Re: Surprised hasn't yet been posted----20 dead in Arkansas flooding!!
Posted by
James g on 6/12/2010, 2:40 am
I have become very familiar with mountain rainfall and flash flooding here in Western NC.The mountains here in this region are the highest and often the steepest anywhere east of the Dakotas.This area in fact is where MT. Mitchell is located and she is the highest point in the entire eastern US. My house is 26 miles south of the Great Smoky MNT.National park which contains many peaks exceeding 6000 feet.The average rainfall in this area ranges any where from a realitivly dry 40 inches to as much as 100 plus inches on many of the high SE facing slopes.Translyvannia county NC. which is only about 20 or so miles to the east of my home, is on average the wettest county outside of the Pacific NW.This region is very prone to both FF and debri flows,both of which can happen suddenly with little or no warning.I have lived here since 2005 and again I am very familar with the hazzards of FF in mountainous terrain.The SW AR. terrain,though rugged does not feature even one peak exceeding 3500 feet;in fact I do not believe there are any slopes in all of AR.over 3000 feet.Also,there are many campgrounds here along very swift rivers and streams which are atleast a 45 minute or more drive to any sort of civilization.Add to all of this the fact that weather radars which cover this region often do a very poor job of depicting precipitation thanks to the high terrain.On top of this,cell phones in most of this area are usually useless. Given all of these factors,campground managers ,emergency officials and NWS service forcasters do a great job of relaying to campers and the general public timely watches and warnings which can and usualy do,prevent the kind of disastor which just occoured in AR.
I do not understand why in that FF prone region of AR.the campground managers,''if no one else'' could not have recieved and relayed to the campers more warning of the impending flood,again; this was a prolonged rainfall event,not a sudden dificult to predict convective or oregraphicly induced event. Yes,I am confident that the terrain did enhance the rainfall rates,but again, heavy rain and possible flooding was predicted at least several hours prior to the rapid water rise.If I am not mistaken,that region was under a FF watch for several hours or more before the flood hit ? If not,then why not,because this same system had caused FF in areas to the S and SW and regional radars were clearly depicting the extream rainfall rates ! I have heard that sheriff deputies were in route to evacuate one of the campgrounds which was hit the hardest.Why on earth would a campground near or on a river in a ff prone region, not at least have a HAM radio ? Where were the local national forest officials ? If in fact the area was under a FF watch, why in Gods name, were not the campers at least advised to evacuate to higher ground ?
While I have yet to learn many of the facts surrounding this event,my experiences with established protocal in my own very FF prone area,coupled with a general knowledge of typical FF watch and warning procedures throughout the US,indicate to me, that these horrible deaths can be attributed to either very poor planning,gross negligance, or both.Not to have a better FF warning and responce system in place in a region so prone to FF events amounts to negligance ! |
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