Posting on FB moments before you die (flooding)

[WanderingWinoZ]

I feel really bad for this guy- stuff has been NUTS again here the last 2 days in texas with crazy rain- 20" in some area that have already had tons of rain this month..
But put the damn phone down & think!   This is so awful & I wish people would quit driving into high water- these deaths are so preventable

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3612731/2-people-missing-Austin-floods-storms-sweep-Texas.html

A 21-year-old man posted a picture from inside his flooded car moments before disappearing on Thursday night - while torrential rain left one person dead and four missing across Texas.

Darren Mitchell, 21, is one of two people missing in Washington County, where heavy rain trapped dozens of people between Thursday and Friday.

A third person died in the area in a flooded trailer home.

Meanwhile, two other people are also missing in the Austin area, where authorities rescued five people from the roof of a house by helicopter.


Heavy rain has forced people out of their homes and led to evacuations and road closures in Texas between Thursday and Friday. Pictured, flooded cars in Montgomery County on Thursday night

Mitchell posted a photo from inside his submerged car on Thursday evening, KHOU reported.

His sister told the station he shared the photo on Facebook, writing in the caption: 'And all I wanted to do was go home.'



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Mitchell called his mother to tell her he was in high water on Thursday night, according to KHOU.

Authorities found his overturned car near the highway on Friday morning.

The search was later suspended until water levels went down, KHOU's Stephanie Whitfield tweeted.

Another person remains missing in the Brenham area. Officials found their vehicle without a driver inside.

Floods in Washington County also left one dead in Chappell Hill, where a person died in a trailer park.

The trailer park was on the FM 1155, not far from Blenham, when it became flooded, KHOU reported.

Two more people remain missing about 90 miles away, in the Austin area.

They were on top of a car and rescuers were about to go help them when water swept them away in a flooded creek, Fire Chief Ken Bailey told KEYE TV.





Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3612731/2-people-missing-Austin-floods-storms-sweep-Texas.html#ixzz49u6XAmPa

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[karinothing]

umm that is terrifying. I think I would be in the middle of having a panic attack and figuring out how to smash my way out of the car. Ugh, I mean I guess maybe he was resigned to what was going to happen or something? I hope this winds up being fake.

[AJL]

I totally believe that this photo is real. I can't imagine what he's going through. I think in the fall when we had the devastating floods around Wimberley, a man who had been swept up in the water, escaped his car and managed to climb up into a tree. He was talking live on the air to a radio station in a means to get help and have rescue helicopters find him.

This is so terrifying but it happens ALL THE TIME here. This time of year is prime torrential rain and flooding season. All central and east central Texans have heard about Turn Around Don't Drown. It's drilled into our heads. It takes 12 inches of water to make a car float and less than two feet of water to sweep away most vehicles including trucks and SUVs. There are so many low water crossings all around and in our cities. Even our major highways have been flooded to closure.

There are few things that I'm scared of but water over roadways is one of them. It may seem like we're a bunch of wimps when we don't want to drive out in our rain storms, but a simple shower can turn into a flash flood *likethat* around here.

As for trying to escape a vehicle that is trapped by water, all of my family members and many of my friends have this tool - a Res-Q-Me.  I truly believe they save lives and for $10, it's a small price to pay.

[turboteal]

God how horrifying.
I'm terrified of driving into water at night during one of these flash floods, when it's raining so hard you can only see out the window in 1 second bursts and the water rises so fast you may be just driving along and then bam you're in a foot of water and floating into deeper. This didn't used to be a paranoia of mine, but it is since we've had so much flooding over the last couple years. Last year we were in Katy on Memorial Day, and tried to drive home (near downtown) that evening, but had to go back and stay at my parent's house because I-10 was underwater further ahead. We had to try three different exits before we found one where the feeder wasn't already flooded.

[DesertMoon]

FYI your head rest has a sharp point on the bar of it so you can pull it out and bash the window in incase of this kinda thing.

[bimbi284]

May 27, 2016 20:32:51 GMT -5 DesertMoon said:

FYI your head rest has a sharp point on the bar of it so you can pull it out and bash the window in incase of this kinda thing.

This is good to know!

That photo is terrifying. I'm not a strong swimmer so any crisi situation where water is involved is my nightmare.

[saz]

Ugh that is so sad. incogneato, I'm with you- having small children in carseats makes the anxiety about what you'd do in these kinds of situations a million times worse.

[pixy0stix]

This makes me want to throw up.

[redwino]

This is so sad and terrifying. I have a little tool to break the window but I too worry about getting dd and myself out in an emergency. We have horrible flash flooding here which freaks me out.

[AJL]

May 27, 2016 20:32:51 GMT -5 DesertMoon said:

FYI your head rest has a sharp point on the bar of it so you can pull it out and bash the window in incase of this kinda thing.

Is this on all vehicles because there isn't a sharp point on my head rest. The ends that go into the seat top are rounded. 

[jln]

May 27, 2016 22:49:55 GMT -5 AJL said:

May 27, 2016 20:32:51 GMT -5 DesertMoon said:

FYI your head rest has a sharp point on the bar of it so you can pull it out and bash the window in incase of this kinda thing.

Is this on all vehicles because there isn't a sharp point on my head rest. The ends that go into the seat top are rounded. 

No, it's not. It's on some vehicles but they weren't actually manufactured to be used in an emergency and many new cars are rounded, not sharp.

[jln]

Many of those pictures were taken very close to me. Just a block down my street a neighbor had a limb torn off their tree and into their roof by a funnel cloud. My neighborhood streets are still flooded and the roads to get out of my subdivision are closed. The flooding happens so fast.

[Mrs.Rad888]

May 27, 2016 19:37:02 GMT -5 AJL said:

I totally believe that this photo is real. I can't imagine what he's going through. I think in the fall when we had the devastating floods around Wimberley, a man who had been swept up in the water, escaped his car and managed to climb up into a tree. He was talking live on the air to a radio station in a means to get help and have rescue helicopters find him.

This is so terrifying but it happens ALL THE TIME here. This time of year is prime torrential rain and flooding season. All central and east central Texans have heard about Turn Around Don't Drown. It's drilled into our heads. It takes 12 inches of water to make a car float and less than two feet of water to sweep away most vehicles including trucks and SUVs. There are so many low water crossings all around and in our cities. Even our major highways have been flooded to closure.

There are few things that I'm scared of but water over roadways is one of them. It may seem like we're a bunch of wimps when we don't want to drive out in our rain storms, but a simple shower can turn into a flash flood *likethat* around here.

As for trying to escape a vehicle that is trapped by water, all of my family members and many of my friends have this tool - a Res-Q-Me.  I truly believe they save lives and for $10, it's a small price to pay.

We don't have the flash flood threat that you guys do, but we do have a lot of bodies of water. A couple of years ago, a man on his way to work went off the freeway and went into the inlet, where he drowned inside his car. That's when I bought a 2-pack of the Res-Q-Me, one for me and one for DH. I like to think that having it on my keychain protects me from needing to use it.
Just a heads up, if you have one of these on your keychain, you won't be allowed to take it into the courtroom if you have jury duty. I had to leave my keys with the security guards because of the seatbelt cutter.

[MixedBerryJam]

This is awful. I like the idea of using the metal on my headrest to break a window, but even in non-emergency but still urgent situations, I know for a fact that I have struggled even to find the button to turn my emergency flashers on. I'm pretty sure in this situation I would completely lose my cool and not remember the headrest trick. We don't have them around here, but flash floods can happen ... in a flash! Terrifying.

[WanderingWinoZ]

FYI
www.wikihow.com/Escape-from-a-Sinking-Car
it's counter intuitive, but you really want to roll down a window/windows & let water in as soon as you realize you are in trouble
once there is water insdie & out, the pressure is equal & you should be able to open the door or you can swim out the window
if you wait till your car is completely submerged, the electrical may go out and/or you may not be able to push open the door if all the water on the outside is holding it closed

[hopecounts]

May 27, 2016 21:46:16 GMT -5 saz said:

Ugh that is so sad. incogneato, I'm with you- having small children in carseats makes the anxiety about what you'd do in these kinds of situations a million times worse.

The res q me linked above has a seatbelt cutter that would work to cut the straps in an emergency.
I have one in my car and that is my plan.

[RoxMonster]

When I started driving, my dad bought me one of those rescue kits to keep in my glove compartment with the seatbelt cutter and device to knock out a window. But like you guys have said, in an emergency, I just HOPE I am thinking clearly to grab it out of the glove compartment and use it properly.

One of my greatest fears (possibly my greatest fear) is deep water. The thought of my car being submerged or swept away is terrifying to me. We don't have a ton of flooding issues here (down by the river we do, but I live nowhere near the river). The worst we had was a few years ago when two of my routes to and from work were flooded (I commute on country highways with not a lot of other options). I was thinking I may have had to spend the night in the town where I work but thankfully found an out-of-the-way around the flooding to get home. Lots of people were getting their cars stuck in water.

[glitzyglow]

Omg, how terrifying. I need to buy a seat belt cutter and a window breaker. I'm going to do now while I'm thinking about it.

[Pom]

We are local and they reported on our local news a few moments ago that this man was found. How horrifying. We had a death last spring near our home as well south of San Antonio. A young woman headed home in the dark, after a high school event was swept away in flood waters. She called her dad but it was too late. It was around the time of the Wimberley floods when several people died when the vacation cottages they were staying in, were lost in the floods.

I have never been scared of the water, but I've never seen this devastation where I grew up in the Midwest. The severe Texas flooding is no joke. Buying rescue kits for my family members ASAP.

[ellipses84]

How awful. The flooding is truly devastating. The flash flood warnings are so vague so it's hard to tell what areas are impacted or not in this huge city and they can flood a road so fast. When our house flooded, I had somewhere important to be and was on the phone trying to find out if it was canceled or not. I should have already left and was debating about driving to the place to find out. The bayou overflowed and flooded our entire neighborhood within minutes, to a depth where nobody could have driven out. Every car on our street was flooded. I was so glad I hadn't left, with DH and DS home and I'm so glad we weren't sleeping when it happened.

[katfco]

May 28, 2016 5:50:27 GMT -5 WanderingWinoZ said:

FYI
www.wikihow.com/Escape-from-a-Sinking-Car
it's counter intuitive, but you really want to roll down a window/windows & let water in as soon as you realize you are in trouble
once there is water insdie & out, the pressure is equal & you should be able to open the door or you can swim out the window
if you wait till your car is completely submerged, the electrical may go out and/or you may not be able to push open the door if all the water on the outside is holding it closed

If  that happens, you wait until the car fills up, thus equalizing the pressure in and out, and the door will open easily. Still scary, but doable. 

[MrsAxilla]

May 27, 2016 20:32:51 GMT -5 DesertMoon said:

FYI your head rest has a sharp point on the bar of it so you can pull it out and bash the window in incase of this kinda thing.

DH just now shared this with me from Reddit's Today I learned!  I was like, "yeah, one of my girls already told me that."  Lol.

[whatnext]

I'm not sure breaking the glass would have helped, usually the water flow is so strong or you get hit and killed by debris

[laurack]

May 28, 2016 5:50:27 GMT -5 WanderingWinoZ said:

FYI
www.wikihow.com/Escape-from-a-Sinking-Car
it's counter intuitive, but you really want to roll down a window/windows & let water in as soon as you realize you are in trouble
once there is water insdie & out, the pressure is equal & you should be able to open the door or you can swim out the window
if you wait till your car is completely submerged, the electrical may go out and/or you may not be able to push open the door if all the water on the outside is holding it closed

Reading this made me panicky but I forced myself to continue. Thanks for posting!

The idea of this happening with my kids in the car is terrifying

[laurack]

I just added a couple of seat belt cutter hammer tools to my Amazon cart. They are 3 bucks each and highly rated so hopefully good ones

www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00CB8WM2S/ref=ox_sc_act_image_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A1GSNCVG8PWK7K