A quarter inch of rain in fifteen minutes can turn a freshly burned slope into a river of mud and boulders. The warning system has long leaned on a model built from Southern California canyons, then applied to the entire West. A new USGS update refits it for three regions and beats the old version by roughly 15 to 60 percent, with fewer false alarms. A strong El Niño is on the way, so read this before the next storm.
Flooding is happening more often in a world of ever increasing extreme weather. How can we best prepare ourselves to survive and thrive? Read more to learn about what to do before, during and after an extreme flooding event that is supercharged by climate change.
This article is taken from a previous, longer article about the health impacts of flooding. Here we focus mostly on flood preparation and recovery. A recent study titled Increasing Vulnerability to Health Effects before, during and after Floods, observed the following in people who had experienced a major flood… Males had a higher risk of dying due to risk taking behaviors Females had a higher risk for anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress Young children, the elderly, and those with a chronic disease (e.g. heart disease, lung disease, etc) had a higher chance of getting sick or sicker Poor people have bad outcomes… Read More »How to prepare for and survive a flood