With all of the recent rains and flooding conditions, I thought I would once again stand on my pulpit and remind everyone of the dangers of water, both swiftwater and flood waters.

PLEASE DO NOT ATTEMPT TO DRIVE THROUGH WATER WHICH IS MOVING AND STILL WATER WHERE YOU CANNOT COMPLETELY SEE THE BOTTOM OF THE ROAD. PLEASE DO NOT ALLOW YOUR CHILDREN (OR YOURSELF FOR THAT MATTER) TO PLAY IN RAIN SWOLLEN CREEKS, STREAMS AND RIVERS. AND NEVER, NEVER ATTEMPT TO CROSS OR ENTER WATER NEAR A LOW HEAD DAM - YOU WILL MOST LIKEY DIE.

I just spent 5 hours last night running rescue calls for vehicles attempting to cross moving or standing water and had to recover the bodies of three young adults because they failed to heed all of the warnings. I spent 4 hours today on a recovery/search for two additional youths believed to have drowned, as they were believed to have been playing near a low head dam. We are still searching for their bodies.

Sorry if I am ranting, but I only got 2 hours of sleep last night and are having to imagine the thoughts and impacts to the families and friends of tragic loss of these 5 individuals. All of which were preventable.

Pete

It never hurts to repeat this advice. thanks

Thanks for your selfless service to the public. Stay safe!

Man once get caught in class IV or V water you realize how powerful it is.

Thanks for your service and the reminder.

I had the opportunity to review my "Bug back home from work" contingency plans today. Unfortunately, it was while I was siting at work looking at a real-time traffic webcam showing the Delaware river lapping at the bottom of the bridge I needed to cross to get home.

http://www.wfmz.com/webcams/skycam3.html

Good advice, but some people have the idea: I can do it & It won't happen to me. What's a low head dam? TNX, R ( I'M NOT GOING TO LET A LITTLE WATER STOP ME ! yeah, right)

We heard about those two incidents down here in Fairfax, Pete. Rough stuff.

Thanks for putting out the reminder to folks.

When I was very young, a few friends and I went out to play in a drainage ditch after a heavy rain. One friend's legs were knocked out from under him by the rushing water and he was swept a few yards where he was caught in a concrete pipe. Luckily the pipe was too small for him, he was caught in such a manner that he could keep his head above water, and the water had someplace else to go rather than pool up until help arrived.

No matter how many times our parents had warned us previously and how little water we thought it was at the time we still went out there. It was luck he didn't drown.

0311,

A low head dam is a river control structure used to slow the flow and create a pool behind it.

This Link show an image and gives safety tips.

MrJim

Nope. Linky broken.

Here is previous post on low head dams:

Low Head Dam - Previous Posting

Please stay safe-
Pete

Maybe a fun thing to figure out for all you SCUBA-divers out there ...

I've always been curious of the weight carrying potential of a fully inflated passenger car tire. Said another way, I've wondered how much steel/iron weight I could hang from a floating passenger car tire (wheel included of course) before it starts to sink.

It has always seemed to me that four inflated tires would provide a tremendous amount of bouyancy, thus the tendency for vehicles to be more bouyant that one would think given their dry weight.

Yeah, thanks for the reminder, as well as all your hard work.

I just did a rough calculation, an average car tire would probably provide about 116 lbs. of buoyancy, minus the weight of the tire and the wheel. Assuming 20 lbs for the tire, and about 15 for an alloy wheel, that comes out to about 81 lbs, or approximately 320 lbs total for a car. This only accounts for the volume of air inside the tire, it might be more or less depending on the buoyancy of the rubber.

Frederick News Post Stories on the drownings:

3 Drown

Two Boys

I just heard (unconfirmed) the body of one of the boys has been recovered.

Pete

.... and the bouancy of the trapped air within the passenger compartment.

Hmm... that sounds like a calculus related rates problem...

I'll solve this...CARS DON'T FLOAT.

Yes, but the weight of the water on the glass as the depth increases will be much more immediately important than any variations in bouancy brought on by respiration.

I prefer to think of this not so much as a calculus problem, but a phys ed one- can you get the window or door open, and then not die while attempting to swim to shore.

Pete
I could not agree with you more, and nothing makes me madder then haveing to get out of bed at 3am to go get some fool who thought that just becouse they have a 4X4 they can drive through three foot of water. and as for the power of swift water, I have been in the pumper with water as deep as the running bords and you could feel it starting to move the truck ( that will bring out the gold brick in a flash)
Hell I have seen the jet skies that our water rescue team use have trouble going aginst the current.

Cars dont float... but can I make a raft from the tires if I know I need to float and not drive? The four tires and a spare tied together may be enough to keep me or my B-O-B dry...?

I seem to recall from the days we didn't roll grandad's tires into the pond <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> that a fully inflated tire will not suppport the weight of the (steel) wheel that it is mounted on.

I thought the idea was that the bouyancy made cars less stable than their weight would suggest, not that they floated.

People's initution about moving water is often wrong anyway, even without the car's bouyancy thrown in. They sometimes try to cross on foot when they shouldn't even though their legs aren't air-filled rubber.