(March 11, 2008) -- When Lisa Arnett awoke in her modest mobile home in the north Texas town of Gainesville on the morning of June 18, 2007, she could not have suspected the horrific events that awaited her family that day. An overnight downpour of up to eight inches produced a flash flood, washing her home into a nearby creek that had become a raging torrent. As it crashed into a bridge downstream, it broke apart spilling Lisa, her 60 year old mother and her two and five year old daughters into the floodwaters. Later that day, she would be found clinging to a tree. Her mother and daughters would not survive.
Generally less dramatic but equally tragic are the many flood or flash flood related deaths that occur in our nation every year. On average, floodwaters claim about 100 lives annually and the even greater tragedy is that eight out of every 10 of those deaths are easily preventable. NOAA National Weather Service Storm Data records indicate more than 7,000 people died as a result of floods in the United States over the last 67 years. Of those, an estimated 80 percent perished because they chose to drive or walk into moving water.
With rare exceptions, the nation's annual toll of flood fatalities has consistently outpaced those related to all other severe weather events. Given the fact that such a high percentage of the flood related deaths resulted from an active choice made by the victim, there exists a singular opportunity to save lives in this area. To that end, NOAA's National Weather Service and its partners in the emergency management community, the media and the private sector have become increasingly aggressive in their efforts to enhance public flood safety awareness.
The National Weather Service has designated March 17-21, 2008 as the fourth annual Flood Safety Awareness Week. The week is designed to highlight how floods and flash floods occur, the dangers associated with them and the best ways to protect life and property.
One of the strongest weapons in the flood safety awareness arsenal is the Turn Around Don't Drown® campaign, launched in 2003 by the National Weather Service and the Florida-based Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH). Along with colorful catch phrases like "Stop, Drop and Roll", "Better Safe than Sorry" or "Look, before you Leap", Turn Around Don't Drown is intended to quickly inject common sense into a life and death decision making process.
Posters, automobile bumper stickers, brochures and animated presentations are all part of a growing arsenal of tools designed to make Turn Around Don't Drown a top-of-mind slogan whenever someone is confronted with a hazardous flood event. Visitors to the Turn Around Don't Drown web site are encouraged to download, re-produce and distribute the images through community civic organizations, schools, government agencies or private businesses.
For more information on:
Flood Safety Awareness week, visit: http://www.weather.gov/floodsafety.
Turn Around Don't Drown, visit: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/srh/tadd.
Federal Alliance for Safe Homes, visit: http://www.flash.org.