Flood In Colorado City/Hildale kills 7 more missing

[silverspoons]

I was taken back but they posted a video of the vans being washed away. I guess they had no idea there were kids inside if you listen.

http://www.stgeorgeutah.com/news/archiv ... ftIQWB_bIU

I'm not sure it is just an FLDS thing about death and not showing emotion, but also an LDS thing. I have been to many LDS and FLDS funerals. They both have the same feel, very religious service and the gatherings afterwords are similar to any church potluck. Kids are playing and I rarely see sadness. Sadness is a sign that you don't believe the plan of the afterlife. I grew up an Italian Catholic and I still have to wear all black to a funeral and I cry and feel sad. At my MIL funeral after a 4 hour service , I sat outside the chapel alone for a bit. I could not take the happy almost wedding reception like atmosphere in the gym. The bishop came up to me and asked why I looked so sad. When he realized I was a non believer , he understood why I would be sad. Luckily he got called away just as he was trying to convince me to read the Book of Mormon.

[missegeno]

And it appears the "God's wrath" accusations about the UEP controversy have begun. So sad for this community.

deseretnews.com/splash?skipSplash=true&platform=android&appPlatform=android&isWebView=0&requestedURI=/article/865636985/7th-victim-in-Zion-flash-flood-located-FLDS-families-thankful-for-help-in-Hildale-search.html?pg=all

[2xx1xy1JD]

That's just tragic.

10 years ago, I got caught in a flash flood while driving with my tots (aged 1 and 2 at the time) to pick up my 5 yr old from day camp. It came on without warning, and I had never seen anything like it in person - within a few minutes, the street turned into a river. The tire on my minivan got damaged by hitting something hidden below the water, and I was forced to drive over the grass to park in front of a school and ran with the kids into a daycare. Thankfully, they were total angels.

My FIL came to rescue my 5 year old, who was stranded in an old house on a hill, which had suddenly become surrounded by a moat. He waded in and carried her out, then managed to get through the flooded street to get us. Whatever else I may snark on with my FIL, he became my hero that day.

Before that, I never really understood how floods cause so much damage. Now I know they can be really, really dangerous and scary as shit.

[FundieFarmer]

This is probably a stupid question, but in your experiences, how do flash floods occur? I read somewhere that it can be from dams or ice jams breaking, but I'm sure that can't be all. Our city floods rather regularly, but always with warning from endless storms. We live in a flat state, so we just have sitting floods- not any that move.

[missegeno]

I'm no expert on floods, but the southern Utah land is not very absorbant. It's lot of sun baked red rock, so water takes a while to soak in (unlike in my home areas in the great Lakes region and Pacific Northwest, where the land drinks it right up). Utah is also very mountainous, so there tends to be some frozen moisture at high elevations (though I am uncertain of how much in southern Utah, as I spent most of my time there in Provo and SLC). My understanding is that the mountain water can thaw and roll down from a high elevation, gathering disastrous momentum. Add to that a terrain that is fairly water resistant and you get a lot of water moving very quickly. And that's not even considering any rain that might also occur.

[SpoonfulOSugar]

This is probably a stupid question, but in your experiences, how do flash floods occur? I read somewhere that it can be from dams or ice jams breaking, but I'm sure that can't be all. Our city floods rather regularly, but always with warning from endless storms. We live in a flat state, so we just have sitting floods- not any that move.

Flash flooding like in Utah is a specifically southwestern phenomenon. It occurs because the soil is baked dry and hard packed, so when rain comes, it doesn't soak in, it just rolls downhill FAST. Also, the rain falls in a monsoon pattern, so it quickly goes from hot and dry to torrents of water.

In New Mexico, one campaign is "Ditches are Deadly" with La Llorona (a folk tale character) as the image. Basically, a rain even hundreds of miles up in the mountains can lead to a torrent of water moving down the water shed. So the flooding can occur outside of the rain area, too.

(Hence, not being in a canyon or ditch, or being hyper alert if you are, because the water just appears like *snaps fingers* that.) It was common in my town to have rivulets of water down every single street, and the ditch I was most familiar with could go from dry to a "river" in minutes.

One flood in northern NM this summer (at Philmont Scout Ranch) the campers were like 20 feet about a small creek (3-4 feet wide). A wall of water rolled through and a camper was swept away and drowned.

Water is an awesome force.

[Sobeknofret]

This is probably a stupid question, but in your experiences, how do flash floods occur? I read somewhere that it can be from dams or ice jams breaking, but I'm sure that can't be all. Our city floods rather regularly, but always with warning from endless storms. We live in a flat state, so we just have sitting floods- not any that move.

Here, it's because there's relatively little vegetation to hold the water in place, and a storm 30-50 miles away will result in a flash flood here. We've got a relatively good drainage system in place for those kinds of flash floods, but in city drainage is awful. Storms here also tend to be quick and dump a lot of water really fast.

[FundieFarmer]

Interesting. Thanks, y'all. The sources I looked at online didn't give me a good picture, so I thought I'd ask. Thank you!

[SpoonfulOSugar]

Interesting. Thanks, y'all. The sources I looked at online didn't give me a good picture, so I thought I'd ask. Thank you!

I've been looking at videos (including some that scared me enough that I can't suggest anyone else watch them) to see if I could find one that helps illustrate the speed and intensity. I think this one gives a good example in a short time. (He has other videos that I probably will watch.) Two things - when the first wash floods - watch the large limb that comes down very quickly. Also, notice that the start is more mud than water - one of the hazards is all the debris being thrown around.

ETA: Also - it isn't even raining where this was shot.

[Howl]

Just as some people chase tornadoes, there are people who "chase" flash floods.

Here is an interesting video or the debris flow and subsequent flood coming down a dry arroyo in southern Utah

A flash flood in the Narrows in Zion National Park

Just gives you some sense of the power of these phenomena.

ETA, Spoonful, I think we found the same guy at the same time. Wish I could give him a beard make-over, but the footage is great.

[SpoonfulOSugar]

Just as some people chase tornadoes, there are people who "chase" flash floods.

Here is an interesting video or the debris flow and subsequent flood coming down a dry arroyo in southern Utah

A flash flood in the Narrows in Zion National Park

Just gives you some sense of the power of these phenomena.

ETA, Spoonful, I think we found the same guy at the same time. Wish I could give him a beard make-over, but the footage is great.

His channel has lots of interesting videos - I've been watching off and on this afternoon. He's definitely gotten more sophisticated as time has passed (some of this year's videos are shot with a drone.) I just watched one where a second crest and wave of debris comes along. There's also one where an enormous rock gets pushed along.

The one I cannot recommend is an amateur shoot in El Paso this year - they're shooting from a walled patio, but the way the water is eating away at stuff, I'd be heading for higher ground, not shooting footage.

At least the south Utah guy acknowledges the inherent risk in what he is doing and *APPEARS* to be making sure he knows an escape route. Plus, being right in the area, I think his videos are very consistent with what happened in Hildale.

Mr. Spoon is from Missouri - near Johnson's Shut-Ins State Park which flooded due to the dam collapse at Taum Sauk. We've seen the debris field - boulders as big as a house. It was a forceful reminder of how powerful water can be. (I'm a water baby at heart - it has a magnetic appeal to me, but I have to remember it is not always the friendly entity I think it should be.)

Floods fascinate me.

Edited to fix punctuation.

[church_of_dog]

As a Degreed Hydrology Professional :lol: (yes really), I can say that the explanations people are giving here are pretty right on.

When rain falls (or snow melts) on land that can't absorb the water as fast as it arrives, the water has to run off.

Also, consider the shape of the stream channel -- when it's cut into the ground with vertical walls, like many desert canyons are, then the floodwater can't spread out, either. (Spreading out slows it down and reduces its power dramatically. A healthy non-desert stream stays within its banks when it's not in flood stage but spreads out when it floods, so doesn't have the kind of force that flash floods do.)

And in addition, when thunderstorms come, they can sometimes add really incredible amounts of rain in a very short time. Sometimes it's a very small thunder cell and/or very distant from where the flood happens, so people are not always even aware there is bad weather upstream that could affect them.

The last piece to add is to consider the shape of a watershed. It varies, of course, but a typical watershed is kind of teardrop shaped, with the round end being up in the mountains (headwaters) and the pointy end being the outflow where the creek or river empties into another creek or lake or the ocean. So if there is rain up in the headwaters falling in the vicinity of several creeks, if all those creeks happen to be part of the same watershed, then as the water flows down, it will join together and can end up with a much bigger mess in the lower part than would have been anticipated upstream if you didn't realize that area is all part of the same watershed.

TL;DR -- rocks are hard and water is wet :lol:

[SpoonfulOSugar]

The Daily Mail has an article and a series of pictures from a press conference about the two families involved:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3239018/Two-polygamist-widowers-speak-surviving-sons-three-wives-13-children-killed-flash-flood-tragedy.html

Three women killed - all sisters.

Sheldon Black Jr. lost his wife Della and four daughters. Joseph N. Jessop lost his two wives, Josephine and Naomi, and five children.

Black's six-year-old son, Tyson Lucas Black, is still missing.

The pictures of the little boy survivors are tough - they got banged up.

[DarkAnts]

The rain in SLC (from the same storm) was intense we lost power more then once. I can't immangine how bad it was down there to cause such damage and loss of life.