We have had a lot of rain lately. There are rivers all around us and there has been much flooding. The tricky thing about a river is, that it may not even be raining where you are, but if it rained a lot upstrieam, you might find yourself in a high water situation. This water gets out on the roads and makes it impossible to get across. Some people do try to cross high water in their car. This is very dangerous. Because the water can come in a rush. A wall of water can come while you are crossing and the change in the water level can be enough to lift your car off the road and take it to the rushing river. I have been reading in the newspaper where this has happened several times around here lately, leaving people no choice but to climb out the window and hopefully hang onto a tree limb until help arrives. Many people are killed this way. Don't ever cross high water in your car.
I am still amazed by the stupidity of some people, people that drive at high speed into standing water and get stranded.
We are occasionally cut off when the creek floods. I have driven through deep water after being stranded at the Fitzroy Crossing for several weeks. I have also driven through flooded creeks in the Territory, but the risks I took were calculated & I took precautions such as strapping the doors fully forward & allowing the water into the vehicle & to flow right through & out the other side. To do stuff like this you need plenty of experience & a good knowledge of your vehicle. I have rescued several people & families in the past that were themselves stranded. I would never attempt crossing a fast flowing flooded waterway unless I had to, & even then not without due consideration for the various possible dangers involved. Where we are now, there is no need for such measures unless it was a medical emergency. We don't have to go anywhere. We just sit tight until the flooding goes down. Keith.
I would never attempt it, I have come across flooded fords in the past and I always turn around and find another route, its just not worth the risk.
High water best to stay out of you can put pipes onto air inlet and exhaust if really needed but most cars and trucks today dont take high water well STAY OUT BEST FIND WAY AROUND
Yes lonewolf I agree, in England you have that option. No where is far from anywhere else. In Australia towns & roads are far between. You can travel for days on the dirt roads here & see no one. If the supplies have run out you can sometimes be lucky enough to shoot game without having to travel too far from your vehicle, but at other times in wide flat open country you will see nothing. However, if it is floods that have you stranded, then you do have plenty of water The lack of water is very often the problem in Australia. I had been stranded at the Fitzroy for a month, & was running low on provisions. The water level had come down, but I knew that fresh rains would bring it up again. Even so the water was flowing over my knees & by the time I reached the other side I was running on only 2 cylinders out of the 6 cylinder Toyota engine. I have been right round Australia, & into the center. A beautiful country, but it can be harsh, barren & unforgiving. Carrying survival supplies, wallaby jack & a winch are a must if you travel away from home. Keith.
Best truck for high water is the old 6x6 duece and a half with a fording kit low gear first gear in all wheel set throttle lock and just keep it movein
yes, the situation in England is different to that in Australia or even in America. having said that, a lot of prepping and survival is universal, the first thing to do, or rather not to do, is to take chances, there is always an alternative. I have seen too many vehicles stranded because either people took a chance or they didn't know where they were going. in Devon we have very deep and narrow country lanes, with granite walls and deep ditches either side, its fairly easy to come to grief if someone dosent know what their doing.
I have a 1947 duece and a half i got from colemans military surplus best 3000 dollars i spent on a truck the amish neighbors call it the beast ive done alot of favors for them logging. Itand the winch on the front we get it out
To cross those kinds of thigh high waters, you would need a vehicle with 4 wheel drive and adequate ground clearance. But most of all you would need a snorkel attached so that the air intake is not choked off by incoming water. If you engine is water tight and you have a snorkel, it should be able to go through deep waters, but not for extended periods of time.
Those are called a fording kit and best to do exhauts allso. Most just go to fast and short out electrics better to have a good sealed diesel they better for water fording
We have roads cut off due to high water during heavy spring and summer rains in the Metroplex area of Texas. NEVER, NEVER cross a road with your car. We frequently have deaths during heavy rains because someone wanted to "chance it". A frequent saying we have here is "Turn around, don't drown".
Be careful of water especially when it is raining hard. In 2009, we had this experience of going to the market on a rainy morning. After 1 hour on our way back home, the street was already flooded waist-high and no vehicle could pass, even the big trucks and buses. Until now no one can tell why the water rose that fast. Worse, that floodwater continued rising from 9am until 4pm until the lowest portion of the road has neck-deep floodwaters. And making it the worst flood, the water subsided only after more than 24 hours. That is the storm Ondoy which ravaged the whole of Metro Manila and suburbs with some houses submerged entirely.
Just got informed by one of my survival group members that is working the river boats "today July 10 " the west levee keeping the water back from flooding New Orleans is in danger of being breeched . All flood gates are open . They are trying to divert water into Lake Ponchatran . At this time the water is about twelve inches from toppling the dam . More and higher water heading their way .
The rivers here are very high as well, and you know all of that water is heading toward New Orleans. This is the highest I can remember it being this late in the year. The '93 flood was much higher, and did a lot more damage, but this year the water has stayed higher longer. I would agree with Lonewolf's philosophy. I never drive into water that is covering the road. Unless it is marked, and you know the depth you have no idea what will happen. We do have the luxury of finding another route. It may be inconvenient and take considerably longer, but you can usually get where you need to go safely.
Are they evacuating New Orleans yet or are they going to let them swim and collect federal relief fund money ?
Evacuations are being staged in order to not have a Houstonian-style mess of a mass exodus such as this, (https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/heres-like-evacuate-houston-hurricane-rita/). Here's the start of evacuations in Louisiana, but they better step on the rest of it! https://weather.com/news/news/2019-07-10-gulf-coast-barry-preps-louisiana-mississippi-texas The tricky part is that the levees are not uniformly the same height, and the topping of them in various locations are also affected by canals, etc. Some areas will not be flooded at all, but the Corps of Engineers usually make that call... and that is what the politicians are listening to. Or not. Because so many people put blind faith in politicians/Corps of Engineers and their slow or inept decisions, the Cajun Navy is always busy, not only in Louisiana but in other states as well... For those who have seen the Cajun Navy on the news but don't know what they are about, an internet search will show that there are many vigilante-style groups who are doing a great job of rescuing folks...here is a little info about one of them: https://www.gq.com/story/cajun-navy-and-the-future-of-vigilante-disaster-relief .
New Orleans getting caught in a pincher movement . High Mississippi river water attacking from the north . Hurricane pushing Gulf of Mexico water inland from the south .
....compounded by the Corps of Engineers shameful shenanigans all over the place, such as the infamous MRGO (Mississippi River Gulf Outlet) that Katrina’s surge waters traveled up and drowned my hometown... This is a huge 76 mile long manmade canal that connects the Gulf of Mexico to the Port of New Orleans. It should have never been built. Every time a storm farts in the Gulf the surge of water has a faster direct impact to the city. .
This time they may get it coming from both sides. Even without Barry the rivers and low areas are already high and wet. Between water coming down the river if it meats a storm surge and a couple of FEET of rain, they are going to be wet again. When you build in a hole that is below sea level and you live on the coast this is just what happens. All the pumps in the world won't hold back this sort of flood. That is like trying to hold back the tides with a broom. There are just parts of new Orleans that need to be abandoned as far as residential living. Let the Casinos build there with parking on the lower floors. These areas are way below sea level and it is getting WORSE. It isn't that the water levels are rising. The LAND is sinking! The federal or state government needs to put a stop to this. If they are too dumb to leave, then when their homes are destroyed again do NOT allow them to rebuild. Buy them out and help them buy ina safer place. I don't have a lot of mercy on the healthy adults but the old people and children need to be removed and helped to safe places.
New Orleans, history seems to be repeating itself, I wonder how many people prepared seeing as how it happened before??
New Orleans is in a precarious situation. The natural watershed of the Mississippi River has been compromised for many years. Every major city along the river has installed flood gates and built levees to protect their property. Rather than planing out into the lower areas as it should, it is dammed up. By the time it gets down to New Orleans it is like a tidal wave. I wonder if the Corps of Engineers has ever done a study of flow rates, or the amount of water that is coming down river to see how it can be improved. I had heard that the levees in New Orleans were never built to withstand a Category 4 or 5 Hurricane. Maybe someone can verify fact or fiction? If you don't plan for the worst that can happen you are pretty much doomed from the start. Lonewolf, you are right. I wonder how many people learned from Karina, and will be better prepared for this event? We do have incredibly short memories when it comes to disaster planning.
most people think a disaster cant happen twice, once its happened they think that's it, rather than prepare for the next one they ignore it.
Most of the loss of life in New Orleans was caused by improper handling and bad choices during the situation. NO wasn't even hit by the brunt of the storm and in fact was on the weak side of Katrina. Poor work on their levees, people not evacuating when told to do so and emergency people doing a piss poor job caused much of the loss. Dropping people on overpasses and leaving them in the hot sun with no water or supplies and locking them into FEMA shelters like the stadium and leaving them there and not letting anyone back out. Once you are locked into a FEMA shelter they usually do not let you back out until they deem it safe for you. I would avoid FEMA shelters if at all possible.
That would confirm everything I have heard and read. Avoid FEMA shelters at all costs. They are not a shelter. They are detention camps, just like a prison, and nothing good happens inside of them.
Tropical storm Barry, news updates: https://weather.com/storms/hurrican...rry-hurricane-forecast-gulf-coast-new-orleans Already, 30,000 homes without electricity https://www.theadvertiser.com/story...utage-map-entergy-cleco-louisiana/1722402001/
For over two centuries it has been known that a city cannot be built where New Orleans is built. I've not been able to find a reference, however the French had a surveyor/engineer go into that swamp around the year 1700 and evaluate the potential of building there. His report stated that the area did lie between a lake and the gulf and was thus utterly unfit for development. There existed only a military outpost on high ground -- it was a malarial hell. So, what happened? Yes, people moved in like cattle onto a field of alfalfa. Here are a couple of very interesting links -- if you are a history buff -- to the 200 yr old battle to keep N.Orleans from flooding. You will note while reading just how pathetically funny has been this futile adventure. The honest thing for the engineering folk to have done would have been to turn around and tell the bovine-brained "people" that they should just leave or drown. Me, were I to have been tasked to fix this and given enormous pay to do so, I would have simply spewed a stream of curses and left. https://expo.nola.com/life-and-cult...ed00f4886/a-year-after-the-aug-5-flood-a.html http://richcampanella.com/assets/pdf/Picayune_Cityscapes_2015-2_11_Flooding in the French Quarter.pdf
It is also inevitable that the Netherlands will be annihilated. https://interestingengineering.com/netherlands-billion-dollar-sea-wall Here is another article that has the "safe for the sheeple to read" format of "these horrific events have happened", but "it won't happen for centuries into the future" -- "Don't worry, be happy." https://geology.com/noaa/atlantic-ocean-tsunami/ The reality of the situation is this, super storms are coming, geologic mega-events happen out at sea. Humans have built megalopolises on oceanfronts. Humans have flocked by the billions to live on the coasts of most all of the world's oceans and seas. Over a billion people live on the Pacific Ring of Fire. Hundreds of millions of humans are going to die.
New Orleans grew too big for its britches and most of it is now seriously in harm's way, and the geography is a bit different now than when that first military outpost and seaport was built on America's main artery. So, now what? After Hurricane Katrina, some said restore flood-damaged New Orleans, yet others said she should be allowed to return to the waves because we can’t fight nature forever. I am speaking as a seventh-generation New Orleanian, and if I could have my way, I would: Keep the port of New Orleans open, because it is a major commercial artery into the heart of America. Keep the French Quarter because it's on ‘high ground’ anyway. Keep all the older New Orleans and South Louisiana communities that are all on higher ground. They are doing just fine, and have been for a long, long time through many 'canes and floods... The ones that are not doing so well and make the biggest news (noise) are all the "newer" communities that have been built over the past sixty, seventy or so years on reclaimed swampland and low lying river bottom land by builders and developers who were blinded by the shiny flash of money to be made...and of course all the dumb sheep followed. And more followed over the years until everybody kinda forgot that they are seriously living in harm's way. Fire the Corps of Engineers. Lock 'em all up and feed them fish head soup and bones, dammit. Repair the mess they made with all of their canals over South Louisiana that allowed cheaper and faster routes for the oil companies to do their thing but sounded the death knell for the marshlands. Restore the marshland back to its original state because this is nature's buffer zone which helps to prevent much of the damage by hurricanes moving in from the Gulf. Alligators belong in the New Orleans Ninth Ward and Lakeview areas (and many other low spots), not people. ALL those places that are so prone to floods....turn it all back into what it originally was: some of the finest hunting and fishing lands in the world! If I were Queen for a day... lots of folks would be screaming, lol. .
I figure that Katrina-sized hurricanes and above will happen perpetually from now on in the Gulf and many will hit the coastal cities down there. The USA stands to be out $billions$ per year ad perpetuum due to this phenomenon. The interval time for these I figure will be less than every five years. What with the USA getting more rainfall, the flow rate of the Mississippi will rise and rise. Should some significant geologic event happen in the Atlantic or Gulf, New Orleans will cease to exist. All of the oil derricks and the enormous manifold of gulf pipelines will be destroyed.
