That’s all absolutely part of the review process that feeds back into planning.
True. But if the consensus is this event will change things, then history would be against you. Same with other events like Katrina mentioned above and other scenarios like accident causes, etc. especially when catastrophic events cross generational periods. Sometimes you just can't protect people from themselves no matter how much you try. Unfortunately, the examples are endless and this event is no different.
This is conflating a lot of things. What I think won’t affect the resolution, anyway, because there are a lot more people resigned to “stuff happens” that affect the policy-making process. But “protect(ing) people from themselves” is not really what we’re talking about here - the conversation got steered to and fixated on that, which is only a subset of the bigger picture.
I'm not saying a tornado siren can't wake you up, I'm saying they aren't designed to be useful indoors and definitely shouldn't be relied on to do so. Almost all of the modern tornado sirens in OK can be used as PA systems and include flash flood siren tones as well.
In general, I believe the answer is yes. The number of people who did respond to that info shows that. But for context, the question really is have you ever lived in an area that was historically prone to catastrophic natural events?
Sure. For example, had the Mystic co-owner, who perished in this event, followed his decades old concerns about the catastrophic flood potential of the camp, he would have evacuated the camp as he did his pregnant wife many years previously. What caught him, and others, off guard was an actual 100 year event which most living would not have remembered. Mother nature is not linear.
What I’ve learned and experienced on this topic is that people who have never lived in those types of “danger” areas will never understand why people still live and spend time in those areas. For example, in this same area, there have been 30+ major flood events with the river at 20+ feet and several events at 30+ feet over the past 50 years. Yet people still flock to the area irrespective of the danger.
I spent many times in that Waring area as we used to go to a church there.
It still doesn’t answer the question why, and I’ve got at least four more “whys” after the first layer. It’s not good enough to just say “stuff happens.” But it’s very presumptive to think that risk can’t be assessed and properly mitigated. In fact, sometimes it takes fresh eyes to look at a situation and see what others don’t.
Who did that? I certainly don’t think it was deliberate. Was it lacking a well-engineered plan at many levels? More than likely, but we don’t know that yet, and I’m sure more will come out in the AAR unless people just write it off as stuff happens. But deliberate? No. That’s a big jump that misses a lot of nuance.
You hit it here - risk is calculated, and at the organizational planning level there’s usually a matrix involving magnitude and frequency of risk. When you start dealing with large groups of people that cannot self-mobilize, dealing with the dead of night, you have to be pretty imaginative and thorough. Recreational risk - decisions made by adults that affect only themselves is one thing, but when it involves dependents who are more or less along for the ride, it’s another entirely.
What precisely do you think seatbelts, front airbags, side and curtain airbags, crumple zones etc are?
Sarcasm aside, do you think there’s a chance this event could have been handled better at some level? If so, is it worth trying to make improvements?
When did we KNOW this event was going to dump all the rain it did? Not think, know. After it was already underway? How far into it before it was realized? Past the point of no return?
Except the questions you should be looking for, are the answers why did other people and entities in the same area evacuate or monitor the situation in real time? So some actually properly mitigated the risk. No? Why the difference?
Those are absolutely some of the questions that should be asked. But there are definitely other questions. I’m not sure what you’re attributing to my motives to treat that as an exclusive thought.
What efforts can be in place when such a warning (or even a watch) is given? Seems like things should be stepped up into a higher phase of readiness and preparedness, doesn’t it?
Reviewing the events to make changes going forward is part of the recovery phase of disaster planning. That’s literally what this is about.
Agree with that.
Absolutely not. You’re the one saying we aren’t making improvements. I’m saying we have and continue to do so. I’m not the one in this thread throwing up my hands and saying “we’ve reached the limit of technology or our ability to reduce risk”. Far from it.
I agree! But I’m not the one who made it sound like we aren’t making improvements.
Ah yes, blame the tool, not the user. How are trucks more dangerous when operated correctly? I have a better view of my surroundings in a truck than I do a car, and a truck is more visible to others than a car. If you're behind a truck and can't see past it, you're probably too close. So how are these dangerous to others when operated properly?
There are five more
Very, very true. But it’s important to distinguish between an activity like hiking into caves, which carries a higher level of risk encumbered by the person making the choice to do so, and another, like sleeping in a building under the supervision of others.
Sure. Any time more than 1 inch of rain is forecast within the Guadalupe River management system, a mandatory evacuation is required to an elevation based on a rolling 150-year estimate. Short of that, no.
IIRC, London has built curbside barricades in some places to keep pedestrians, with their eyes glued to a screen, from being run over by cars operating correctly in the driving lanes.
infrastructure to separate road users and pedestrians is good, but car design can do a lot to protect pedestrians when they inevitably mix (a lot of drivers are glued to their screens as well). Our addiction to unnecessarily large vehicles and the fact that people seem to love these massive grills has done nothing to help.
I’m not sure you intended it this way, but this is not being taken as a serious reply.
You haven't explained how, when driven properly, a large grill makes a difference. Or how a pedestrian has a harder time seeing a truck than, say, a smart car, or better yet a motorcycle. Or is really an operator/awareness issue and not the actual vehicle type? Also, how am I supposed to haul a thousand plus pounds of stuff that won't actually fit in a car, like I do most weeks, in a car? Or do you know of a way I can fit a 55 gallon drum into a car, and then get it out.
Absolutely. That aspect can be further mitigated, but it’ll be hard.
Yep. Probably rules out the beach (Tsunamis, hurricanes, etc), anywhere between Texas, Minnesota, and South Carolina due to the tornado risk. Also, better ditch the West Coast - fires, earthquakes, mudslides. And obviously, rivers. Can't be close to those. Eventually, they all flood. I think we're all down to living in Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho. Except for the damned Bears. They ruin pretty much everything.
lol, another non-serious reply. Mitigation is about defense in depth, assessing risk and acting appropriately to close the holes in the Swiss cheese. If you’re going to build on a flood plain in known flash-flood country, there’d better be a robust system in place.
Except that is the reply you requested below. Right? Risk mitigation follows 4 principal paths: avoidance, reduction, transference, and acceptance. I gave you the avoidance path which usually has the greatest return. The fact you don't take it seriously I think points to why some people acted on the flood warnings and some people did not in the first place. So, specifically how do you think this could have been further mitigated?
I need more data, to begin with. We all do. We don’t know how many plans were in place and attempted to be enacted - that’s part of a well-needed AAR.