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The most frustrating part: How old the endlessly re-learned lesson is.
Flash floods, by definition, are unpredictable, their force and damage random, their timing and location a matter of short — often very short — notice.
Flash flooding is not something you simply “weather,” pardon the pun, because they are more than weather. They are instant risks that can be severely damaging and even kill. You prepare for them by being proactive in reducing risks long before the first raindrop, by paying attention to the alerts and by ignoring any impulse to push your way through the storm.
A recent incident in an Arizona swimming hole starkly demonstrated the tragedy flash flooding can bring, though the deaths may have been almost unavoidable. A family struck by raging waters was miles from where the rain fell, fires cleared vegetation that otherwise might have slowed or weakened the flow.
But even with a warning, they likely would never have foreseen the devastation of a 6-foot wall of water and debris racing toward them.
Monday’s rainfall in the Wyoming Valley — totaling 2.5 inches in some spots, according to the National Weather Service — did not pose such a threat. But anyone with a scanner heard the rapid chatter about fallen branches, downed power lines, flooded basements and closed roads.
Sadly, many of the problems resulting from the storm here were avoidable.
Often, tree branches fall because they were not properly pruned. Power lines may lose a battle with Mother Nature on their own terms, but they also may fall because of those branches or because of insufficient maintenance.
Intersections and low-lying areas got flooded, at least in part, because storm water drains were not kept clear — and make no mistake, this problem can easily be caused by residents as well as by lack of government attention. People carelessly blow fallen leaves into a gutter rather than bagging them for disposal; litterbugs toss food wrappers, cups and bottles to the street rather than carrying them to a trash can.
And cars getting stuck? Please. How often is this preventable?
People decide to drive through deep water because they think it will be fun, or because they misjudge the depth, or because of a foolish belief that having four-wheel drive makes the car immune to high water.
And of course, there are those who can never afford a few extra minutes for travel, so they refuse to stop and wait or find a new route, and plunge into the water believing their time too precious— before they waste time sitting in a stalled vehicle.
Even when they make it to the other end, they splash water indifferently into neighboring basements.
As Don Winder, of Wilkes Barre, put it, “It happens, but the problem’s not really the water as much as it is the cars.”
Fair enough, but let’s be honest, until self-driving vehicles become the norm, the machine really won’t deserve the blame.
With storms such as the one that struck Monday, the problem is often not the water, it’s the people who didn’t prepare or respond properly.