How effective are life jackets in rapidly flowing deep flood waters?
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I am surely not a swimmer, but after the recent tragic flooding in Texas, it got me and my roommate wondering...
wrote last edited by [email protected]A life jacket is what can help save you once you exhaust yourself fighting against a torrent of water. If you need to do something a bit reckless to save yourself or someone else, then it can help you catch your breath a bit and keep your head above water.
The thing is, if you are needing to rely on a lifejacket, the situation may already be a bit desperate. If you are able to get some kind of an early warning system, then that will go a lot farther at helping you get to safety. Getting a lifejacket could help make a difference if you are in a potential flood zone.
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Thank you and everyone else for all the informative comments!
Back in 2014, I actually did kinda force myself to learn to swim, once, in a deep river with a current. I wasn't all that great at swimming, but I managed to resurface and start swimming towards the shore before someone else swam out to help me.
I think I could have managed to swim to shore myself, but at a struggle as it was my first time ever trying to swim. Regardless, at least I have one experience under my belt.
With all the care, I would strongly advise you not to go with "you must be in a survival situation to learn to swim" cliché.
Not only is it, well, dangerous, but it also doesn't teach you to swim properly either. If you just try to stay on the surface, you'll expend a ton of energy and can get water in your throat which will complicate things severely.
You should learn to stay on the surface by breathing only. Pick a place with still water (lake? calm sea? pool?) and learn to lay down on your spine without movement. Do it near the shore, of course. Just put your body in a star shape, legs and hands extended, and learn to breathe in a way that allows you to float still. Once you learn it, not only you have improved breathing technique helpful in swimming, but you can also take a rest on water anytime to restore without even having a jacket in the first place.
Then, knowing how to breathe to stay afloat, learn to swim. Now you can save a lot of energy because you don't need much movement to keep you afloat, and you can just swim in the direction you need
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If the water conditions are so bad you would consider a life jacket a liability, you’re just fucked. The debris your jacket could get caught on is the stuff that’ll knock you insensate, and then you drown
wrote last edited by [email protected]If you're whitewater kayaking, it's not uncommon to have a knife accessible from your PFD.
It can be used to cut any ropes you might be tangled in or (worse case) cut the PFD.
In general, having a knife with you is useful in most emergency situations (and a throw rope, pin kit, plus knowledge of how to use them).
edit: Oops, this was supposed to be a response for the parent thread.
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"If the water is carrying a Volvo, it doesn't matter how many crunches you did that day."
wrote last edited by [email protected]Idk, this guy might be fine taking on a Volvo.
And there's always adrenaline.
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Idk, this guy might be fine taking on a Volvo.
And there's always adrenaline.
These silly comments were a reference to this bit.
I got my comment a bit wrong tho. Oh well.
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As someone who works on ships, it's truly baffling how many "but what if...!? Life jacket bad!" you see in the intertubes.
I have one of these auto-inflaters and I always wear it on deck. Yes, the color will make me more visible to sharks and a myriad of other theoretical hazards, but I still would prefer not to drown.
One important note: if you for some reason need to wear BOTH an inflatable life jacket and a climbing harness (which I sometimes need to do), make sure to put on the climbing harness first. The harness will not give way to an inflating life jacket, but your chest and ability to breathe will.
Vaccine people. Same thing. They will happily start a case and put it against something with 12 more digits of probability behind it and feel like they have specialized knowledge. Dunning kreuger as well.
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A life jacket can't effectively protect you against debris, but it can help keep you from drowning from exhaustion as you try to dodge and seek an escape. And if you do die anyway, it could help your body be found, for the sake of those who mourn you.
Not exactly true, yes if the debris is bad enough and the current is strong enough, there isn't a lot that will help. BUT if you have a life jacket, even in swiftly moving water, you can lean back and orient your feet downstream and it'll keep your head away from the worst of it.
That would be significantly harder to do without a PFD.
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Not exactly true, yes if the debris is bad enough and the current is strong enough, there isn't a lot that will help. BUT if you have a life jacket, even in swiftly moving water, you can lean back and orient your feet downstream and it'll keep your head away from the worst of it.
That would be significantly harder to do without a PFD.
Good point. I guess people ought not only to have life jackets, but also trained on how best to use them in rough water. Although they're mostly kept near boats and things. Would having them hung on the cabin walls at Camp Mystic have saved lives? Not all, with whole buildings crashing around in the water, but maybe a few.
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A life jacket is what can help save you once you exhaust yourself fighting against a torrent of water. If you need to do something a bit reckless to save yourself or someone else, then it can help you catch your breath a bit and keep your head above water.
The thing is, if you are needing to rely on a lifejacket, the situation may already be a bit desperate. If you are able to get some kind of an early warning system, then that will go a lot farther at helping you get to safety. Getting a lifejacket could help make a difference if you are in a potential flood zone.
A warning like a map of where the most dangerous fast moving flood waters will be? A place where cabins should not be built?
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A warning like a map of where the most dangerous fast moving flood waters will be? A place where cabins should not be built?
You would hope that no houses would be built in potential flooding zones, but that involves pesky things like ‘regulations’ or ‘caring about other peoples lives’.
::: spoiler Tap for spoiler
(/s)
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A warning like a map of where the most dangerous fast moving flood waters will be? A place where cabins should not be built?
wrote last edited by [email protected]A map? Hahaha, that's almost funny!
Coming from South Mississippi, it's up to Alabama as to whenever they decide to open their flood gates as to how many feet of water we get in a flood.
Hurricane Sandy flooded us deeper than Hurricane Katrina. Alabama has proven more than once that they don't give a shit about us down here.
Flood zone maps are only useful when those pesky humans don't intervene and open up flood gates and dams and shit. Oh, and humans literally created those things.
Nature is no longer strictly in control...
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I am surely not a swimmer, but after the recent tragic flooding in Texas, it got me and my roommate wondering...
Water is insanely powerful. As others have said, it could help you get tired swimming. It will not save you if you get pinned, or trapped in hydraulics, like the deadly ones at the bottom of weirs (those low dams, extremely dangerous. You get maytagged until you drown)
The best thing is to not live in flood plains or ecologically risky areas if you can. Research flood maps before moving somewhere. Extreme weather events will become more and more common as the planet deteriorates, unless we dramatically change our emissions, which is not a priority, apparently.
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I am surely not a swimmer, but after the recent tragic flooding in Texas, it got me and my roommate wondering...
wrote last edited by [email protected]I believe in a flood situation what kills you isn't usually the drowning part. It's the being crushed by debris.
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I believe in a flood situation what kills you isn't usually the drowning part. It's the being crushed by debris.
wrote last edited by [email protected]After riding out Katrina for two weeks flooded in, I found myself wondering where all the gators were, and very thankful that nobody was attacked by one (to my knowledge, at least in my area)..
Cuz we're definitely in a gator area...
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After riding out Katrina for two weeks flooded in, I found myself wondering where all the gators were, and very thankful that nobody was attacked by one (to my knowledge, at least in my area)..
Cuz we're definitely in a gator area...
Never been there before. But there are videos of Fukushima debris floes. Looks like a nightmare, regardless of your swimming level.
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Never been there before. But there are videos of Fukushima debris floes. Looks like a nightmare, regardless of your swimming level.
During Katrina flooding, if you didn't have a boat or a tractor, you'd have to walk like 2 miles through flood water, in the swamps, to even get to a store.
Hell, people were even bathing in the flood waters!
It was only after the flood mostly subsided, that I found myself wondering, how lucky everyone was to not be attacked by gators!
