Flash Floods Are the ‘Hardest Kind’ of Disaster to Prevent, Experts Say

Climate|Around the World, Flash Flood Disasters Are the ‘Hardest Kind to Prevent’

Officials in Texas are under scrutiny for a string of refusals to fund early warning systems for flash floods in an area where sudden, intense rainfall is frequent.

Those measures could have included river gauges and warning sirens that could have alerted people that their lives were in imminent danger. The floods that raged down the Guadalupe River eight days ago killed at least 121 people, including at least 36 children.

But global experts in early warning systems said that there are few examples of places around the world that have mastered the choreography of forecasting and communication needed to prevent loss of life in extreme rain events. And in many cases, like in Texas this month, accurate forecasting alone is not enough to prevent calamity.

“Flash floods are the hardest kind of disaster to prevent,” said Erin Coughlan de Perez, who studies disaster risk management at Tufts University. She said that both rich and poor countries have grappled with funding for systems that ultimately either fail or create enough false alarms to erode public confidence.

For instance, in Valencia, Spain, a lack of sufficient warnings contributed to a catastrophe where more than 200 people died in flash floods last year. An alert system was in place, but was not activated until it was already too late.

“When the alert came, my grandpa had already drowned,” one resident told The Times.

“There’s a major ‘cry wolf’ issue because flash floods are so hard to predict,” Dr. Coughlan de Perez said. “And they are pretty infrequent in most places, so it’s hard to motivate investment. But of course, with climate change, they are also getting stronger and more common.”