{"id":4862,"date":"2017-08-30T07:00:25","date_gmt":"2017-08-30T14:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fightfast.com\/blog\/?p=4862"},"modified":"2021-04-05T14:27:29","modified_gmt":"2021-04-05T14:27:29","slug":"flood-survival-101-by-mark-hatmaker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/2017\/08\/30\/flood-survival-101-by-mark-hatmaker\/","title":{"rendered":"Flood Survival 101 By Mark Hatmaker"},"content":{"rendered":"I compose these brief notes while the unfortunateness with Harvey continues to plague Texas and moves its way to Louisiana. I fear it is far too late to aid and assist folks in those stricken areas, so I offer this information in the hopes that we may have it at the fingertips of our minds for future use. As Seneca reminds us \"What has befallen one man may happen to all<\/em>\" or as the Boy Scouts would say \"Be Prepared.<\/em>\"\n\nThe following ideas are gleaned from naturalist studies in river-dynamics, the frontier scout tradition, and an American Indian tactic or two. Keep in mind when we discuss river-fluid mechanics these same mechanics will hold for \"concrete rivers,\" that is, streets turned to river by flood.\n\nRivers basically have two broad aspects to their composition Upland<\/strong> & Lowland<\/strong>. In the Upland<\/strong> portion the land is steeper and we find more energetic water. In the Lowland<\/strong> phase, it flattens out and at times we may see only a yard drop in elevation in a \u00bd mile of travel. The idea to keep in mind is that the faster or more energetic the flow the closer to the source we are, and the more care we must exercise when entering the river.<\/strong>\n

Upland River Characteristics:<\/h4>\nSpeed, energy, sometimes narrow and steep channels, and waterfalls. You can judge the energy the upland river possesses in full flow by the size of the boulders, the debris, the scatter of vehicles in the middle and along the banks. The larger the debris the more energy. Also\u2014the sound. Upland rivers often provide white water noise, not just as found at a waterfall, but in general as it breaks over rocks and debris, or simply the sounds made by its rate of flow.\n

Lowland River Characteristics<\/h4>\nLowland Rivers are usually broader and have longer straightaways and typically silent unless something is plunked into it.\n\nIf we know that we must cross a river, it is wise to choose lowland phases where we can, move downstream, avoid narrowing channels.\n\nLee-Scree<\/strong> is the debris deposited by a river. In the wild, the rocks, boulders and logs we find within the main channel and along its banks. In the urban river-flood the cars, and all other detritus swept into its path. By noting the size of the lee-scree in a river or stream we can gain an idea of how much energy the river has when flowing at force.\n\nLarge boulders, rocks, etc. tell us this river carries a great deal of power, not the best place to interact with the river. Lee-scree seen above ground at the side of a river tells us that the flow is subsiding or we are moving to a lowland phase, therefore safer interaction can be found by moving downriver.\n\nWater moves more quickly around the outside bend of a river or stream than the inside. Think of street corners and curving streets as correlates for river-bends. This info is useful for both reading scree and ford attempts\u2014don't look to the flow of the inside bend to judge a crossing, look to the outside bend. The inside bend water flow may look smooth and fordable, but a look to the outside bend will tell us what we may expect to find when we're already a bit exhausted from fording two-thirds of a supposedly \"calm\" river.\n\nThis is also useful information for those using canoes, kayaks, etc.\u2014in allowing current to ease workload\u2014aim for outside bends when going downstream, inside bends when moving upstream.\n\nWhen wading a moving river\u2014face upstream. If you fall you want to fall towards upstream with the strength of your legs facing downstream to dig in and stop being swept away, or at the very least allowing your legs to be what comes into contact with debris and obstacles and not your head.\n\nAs the speed of water goes up by a factor of 2, the size of the object that can be carried away goes up by a factor of 64.<\/u><\/strong> Keep this foremost in your mind, it is not so much the depth of the flow that is the danger, but speed of flow.<\/em>\n\nFour inches inches of moving water can sweep a car away. We are not nearly as heavy or stable as an automobile.\n\nI'll offer one more tip, this one from an American Indian tradition. When the decision has been made to wade a river and there are few exposed dry rocks to cross over on, face upriver and place your feet-toes upriver\/heels downriver\u2014against the upriver side of rocks as opposed to on top of the rocks. The force of the water will \"stick\" your feet to the rocks as opposed to being swept off the top of them. If more stability is required use a stick in the hands to post upriver for balance, or if no stick is handy, lean forward and place the hands on the upriver side of stones and scuttle sideways to ford.\n\nI fear this information is too little, too late for many down Texas-way, trust that my heart goes out to you. I spent a very fine year of my life down in Bryan, Texas.\n\nTo those of us in the path of Harvey, and Harveys yet to be, may it serve well.\n\nClick here for more post-crisis survival instruction.<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I compose these brief notes while the unfortunateness with Harvey continues to plague Texas and moves its way to Louisiana. I fear it is far too late to aid and assist folks in those stricken areas, so I offer this information in the hopes that we may have it at the fingertips of our minds Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4876,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4862"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4862"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12867,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4862\/revisions\/12867"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}