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I think there could be improvements to flood warning systems. The weather authorities track heavy rainfall in upstream basins, and they issue watches and warnings, so I think they should have dedicated flood warning sirens similar to tornado sirens, especially in areas where larger groups of people gather at the rivers, public access areas, canoe outfitters, summer camps.

They do this in the deep canyon areas at least two popular TN state park areas that I know of. At Rock Island SP there's a dam just upstream from some trails and if they plan to release more water, they will use a siren to get people to evacuate the trails in the low areas. And at Cummins Falls SP people hike down into the deep valley to reach the falls and there is an orientation meeting that hikers are required to attend. They let us know that "in the event of rising waters due to heavy rains upstream, there will be a siren", and they even have an area where you can grab lifejackets and climb straight up the bluff using ropes that are permanently placed.

River areas are low with often high surrounding terrain that cause bad radio and cell coverage, so I figure adding dedicated sirens for larger groups of people during severe flood warnings would more likely wake people up and give them a better chance to escape before it is too late.

@Amos_Umwhat said:
Recent events reminded me of something that happened long ago. My H.S. girlfriend and I used to go out to the Lampasas River in Central TX and go skinny dipping in a deep pocket in the river. One day, we were out there after school, and the river suddenly rose by about 4 feet in about 5 minutes. Her clothes were swept away, I managed to throw my shorts and T-shirt and our wallets and car keys to shore and we climbed the bank and watched in awe as the water rose. Nice sunny day, we were dumbfounded.

I gave her my T-shirt to wear, put on my shorts, and we drove back to her house. All the way there I was really hoping that her Dad wasn't home. Good luck, he wasn't. Whew! I was imagining having my butt kicked while wearing nothing but cut-off shorts.

Richard Nixon was President at the time. It never occurred to us to blame him. Missed opportunity, I guess.

Yeah, these sort of things amaze me. Floods, hurricanes, wildfires, earthquakes…they’ve all been happening since the beginning of time. They also tend to happen in the same general areas over and over. In the case of water, it has to go somewhere. It’s going to go somewhere. Rivers and canyons and such have been naturally carved out because water had a direction to go. People want someone to blame but the one thing they don’t want to blame is “progress”. The more concrete put on the ground, the less room there is for water to soak into the ground and be channeled where it naturally wants to go. Things get built on natural flood planes and direct water towards something or someone else. “Unprecedented damage” numbers are so large because there’s more and more being put in the way to get destroyed.
Water is gonna go whether people want it to or not. Like with most things, it’s society and so-called progress that are the problem.

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