Stupid People Keep On Driving Into Floods, Keep Getting Stuck

Cars stranded in street flooding in the
Wichita, Kansas area Monday. Photo from KAKE.com 

This is the summer of flash flooding, apparently.

I've noted this already in previous posts, but yet again, a vast part of the nation is under threat of flash floods today, and many areas experienced such deluges Monday.

Today, the flash flood risk zones include a broad stripe from Texas through Oklahoma into Missouri; part of Nevada and the desert Southwest, as monsoon moisture will trigger local torrential thunderstorms; parts of Wyoming, and mountainous West Virginia, where gullywashers could easily sweep down steep slopes today.

This just adds to epic rainfall totals for the year in some parts of the nation, a contrast to the West Coast, where the drought just keeps on grinding on.

The flash floods this week add more to the usual phenonenon we see: So many people driving into flooded streets, and getting stuck.

I guess the National Weather Service's constant refrain, "Turn Around, Don't Drown," isn't working. I don't know why.  It seems pretty easy to understand, at least to my little brain.

I'm amazed at the videos, an example of which you see below, of people seeing that cars and trucks have died out as motorists tried to drive down flooded streets. But does everybody else turn around?

Of course not! Some people soldier on, thinking they have magical powers in which everybody else's car drowns in the water but theirs won't.

In the videos, you do see other people turning around instead of plunging into the water. You can almost see the thought bubble of the people in the cars that are turning around. They look at people with their stuck cars and say, "Loser."

The video below, from StormChasingVideo.com, shows cars struggling amid flash floods in Wichita, Kansas Monday.

Wichita isn't exactly a remote, boony one road town. A little under 400,000 people live there. It's a pretty sizeable town.  You'd think that if one street floods, you can turn around and find a nearby street that's not flooded and do a detour there.

So, if you encounter flooding today, no matter where you are, don't drive through it. The car and life you save might be your own.