Flash flooding....anyone ever been caught?

[flatbutt]

The flooding devastating the south and west has me wondering just how fast these floods hit. I saw a video of a hiker clinging to a log as they were swept away by the flood.

I've never been near such an event and the speed at which these floods hit has me amazed. It must be mighty quick for people to get caught.

Anyone ever experience one?

[gacook]

Growing up in Arizona, I've been dealing with flash floods my entire life. Remember sandbagging a major bridge due to one flood--seemed to happen every 10 years or so when we'd have one that big.

Never been caught IN a flash flood, but have had roads blocked by them many, many times. Only a fool tries to drive through a flash flood (and there are a lot of fools).

[Sooner or later]

I have been evacuated in a front end loader.

Does that count?

Here is an article. I live in the north side of the area and don't flood. 3 blocks south of me can have several feet in homes.

https://www.kswo.com/story/29151430/garden-village-residents-clean-up-after-flood

This is the road coming into my neighborhood. A feeder creek was running backwards.

[GH85Carrera]

I have been both lucky and smart in my decisions on where to buy a house, or rent in my early days. I live on a hill, and even after a 12 inches of rain in 48 hours we had zero problems.

I have also been lucky in my travels. We went through St. Lewis just 24 hours before the river flooded for the 1,000th time and closed the interstate.

I have never been in the middle of a flood. I never drive into water flowing across the road, unless I know from direct observation it is less than an inch deep. I just turn around and go another way.

[flatbutt]

Originally Posted by Sooner or later

I have been evacuated in a front end loader.

Does that count?

]

Heck yeah. Did you have any notice that the flood was imminent? Or was it just on you?

[masraum]

Right, I've never been in one thank goodness. I've seen some videos online of flash floods. I think the danger is that the rain happened somewhere else, and now a lot of water is flowing through an area where people aren't expecting it, and it arrives as a wall of water. Watching the videos, they remind me of small, stealthy tsunamis (small relative to a tsunami).

[Sooner or later]

Originally Posted by flatbutt

Heck yeah. Did you have any notice that the flood was imminent? Or was it just on you?

It had been raining cats and dogs so all the creeks were full. The city opened the flood gates on two lakes and the creeks overflowed and the small feeder creeks started running backwards, one of them into my neighborhood.

I came home after a shopping trip and there was no abnormal water over any of the roadways.

As soon as I came into the house I received a mandatory evacuation order for my neighborhood. I got back in the car and the only road in/out was flooded (see above image). It went from nothing to flooded in about 10 minutes. City brought in the front end loader and took us to a convenience store parking lot that is about a half mile away and dumped us off. I called a cab and got a room at a hotel for 2 nights.

[cockerpunk]

yup, while camping. very scary, would not recommend.

[sugarwood]

https://youtu.be/FJOpZF_4b-w?t=419

[Arizona_928]

It's not as scary as one would think. I grew up in Tucson and they had less infrastructure to handle the water. To this day there's neighborhoods that have gully's with a measuring stick (10ft or so) so that you don't drive into it when full.

In phoenix with the "flash floods" more people do not know how to drive in rain/wet conditions so they will crash/spin out into everything.

Up in NE AZ there's a mormon family, last name Rawlings. they went 4wd in a H2 through flash flood areas and abandoned the kids in the back. So flash floods are a good way to get out of child ownership as well.

[SCadaddle]

This thread needs some good music. Enjoy.

[daepp]

Living most of my life in the “Foothill” communities built along the southern slopes of the San Gabriel’s in So Cal (if you know the area, they run roughly from Pasadena eastward for 60-80 miles), flash flooding was something we were warned about regularly - almost from birth. So Cal doesn’t get much rain, but when we do that massive watershed up above us collects massive amounts of rainfall, and much of it flows down the north/south streets - which are rather steep - as well as the gullies, canyons etc that are more accustomed to being both dry and safe.
So i grew up with a healthy amount of warnings and respect for flash floods. We heard many true stories of people and cars who thought they could safely cross these raging currents, much to their demise. We’d often hear “…they’d located the body/car at the beach” where the Santa Ana or San Gabriel rivers - normally bone dry - reached the ocean. And that was enough for me. Consequently, while we all had to cross these waters at time, I new enough to avoid all but the smallest of torrents.

That said, I have been oddly fascinated with these fast-moving flows for most of my life. I can remember a time before we had storm drains (where the water was taken from the southbound lanes around me and channeled more safely away from contact).

Some memories:
- Before the storms drain, it was common to hear boulders crashing down our nearby streets as they were propelled down from the mountains. It’s a sound you’ll never forget.
- School crossing guards would deploy long 2X12 planks for kids to cross the raging waters in the street gutters. Hard to even imagine that in 2022 - but around here almost no one even lets their kids walk to school anymore.
- In the 1990’s a 12 year old girl was swept into one of these storms drains trying to cross the street nearby. She was pinned against the steel grate, unable to extricate herself, but a motorist saw what happened and, with tremendous efforts and with considerable risk to their own safety, managed to pull her to safety. My daughter heard that story and even now at 30 years of age still has a phobia about those storm drain entrances.
- Some of our streets BITD even had 4-6 foot walls to channel the water. Cross one of these an hour or so after it began raining hard and you were pretty much toast.
- In January, 1969 our mountains received more than our ANNUAL rainfall in 24 hours (18”). It had been raining off and on for several days, so the ground was already soaked. The resulting flash floods nearly wiped out the areas of Claremont Upland, Cucamonga and Etiwanda. Especially Cucamonga. I was 6 at the time, but I clearly remember a Saturday morning drive I took with my dad a few days after it ended. Theire were houses sitting in the middle of fields, a house-sized wooden wine barrel/tank sitting on Foothill Blvd (must’ve been empty) and all the ditches and flood control channels were bright yellow and orange - this was a huge citrus area then, and in January the trees are full and fruit iready to pick. The groves were devastated as so much of that fruit was washed/stripped from the trees and became waste. It was a sight I’ll never forget.
Fast forward to today and most of the street issues have been solved with proper engineering. And what were once dry riverbeds and ditches have often today been lined with concrete. It was done for flood control, but you can imagine what it’s done to the velocity of the downward flow of the water. It doesn’t rain often around here, but when it does, I’m still strangely fascinated by the whole thing and know where I can position myself to watch it all happen.
And then there’s YouTube, where I’ve recently discovered a whole host of folks who, like myself are fascinated by flash floods and who also film such things out in nature. Good stuff. But be vigilant always… (Semper vigilans - isn’t that somebody’s motto??)
(Edit: in the time it took for me to write this I see many have posted those YouTube videos – good deal!)

[Bill Douglas]

Six months ago I went white water rafting. It hadn't rained for months and the river was low - meant getting out of the raft in the very shallow rapids. On the day it started bucketing down with rain. We went over the state highway bridge and saw the shallow water, then got up into the mountains and it was flooding big time. The guides were yahooing. It was a fast and fun trip down the river and the water level in the two hour trip had raised it by about 4 meters at the bridge.

[aschen]

nothing as bad as the pics thankfully.

However on my 3rd week of living in houston I got caught pretty bad in hurricane Allison. My truck stalled an I59 right in town just as it started to rain. I walked home, just a couple miles and got my 930 out and drove to get a gas can as I thought the truck may have ran out of gas (gauge didnt work).

By the time I got there it was coming down crazy hard, I found a high parking spot for the 930 and waded home in knee high water. I was about 24yo I think. Wouldn't retrieve either car for about a week.

Welcome to tx.

[3rd_gear_Ted]

Interstate 10 Cali:
When this occurred a guy in his truck was perched on the ledge of the EB lane destroyed. A couple more feet he would of been toast. We were stuck for hours till Caltrans opened WB lanes. The smell of desert monsoons coming @ you is intoxicating to some.
In Oklahoma you can buy hail damaged brand new trucks, get a new hood & windshield and live with the roof dents.

https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=mcafee&ei=UTF-8&p=tex+wash+bridge+collapse&type=E211US714G0#id=1&vid=f78c931c4e4b09e56e3e9164ba42d1e9&action=click

[pete3799]

Nope.

[red 928]

[flatbutt]

Originally Posted by pete3799

Nope.

Ho-lee Hannah! That thing just kept on coming! When you see BOULDERS being pushed like pebbles you have got to be in awe.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by flatbutt

Ho-lee Hannah! That thing just kept on coming! When you see BOULDERS being pushed like pebbles you have got to be in awe.

Absolutely. Amazing and terrifying.

Reminds me of some of the videos of the tsunami that hit Japan but on a much smaller scale.

[Rusty Heap]

https://www.facebook.com/kelvin.berg/videos/455298769811558

great video of SxS riders caught in a flood!!!