Alert fatigue and the Guadalupe river flash flood

[bigsky]

I have spent a couple of weeks in Kerrville in a little co-op RV park down by the Guadalupe river and two months in Boerne exploring all the Texas Hill country. (Never went to church camp there.) Lost Maples and Guadalupe State park and the towns along the way are places I visited many times. If you've been there, you have probably encountered many streets with "don't drown--turn around" very deep concrete ditches many of which too deep and steep to drive an RV or long truck with a camper. And I've seen rainstorms fill those completely full to overflowing.

I will not even mention the political and unscientific nonsense surrounding the tragedy. A couple of other issues have been touched on and one, the lack of early warning system in towns along the river, appeals to my local government wonk. The past disasters and flash floods did not prompt investment in warning systems. That is, whether we know it or not, a calculation of lives vs money. Government does that all the time or we would not allow driving at night.

The other issue is personal. My iPhone screams weather warnings, in Montana, in the winter, its cacophony wakes me up every time a snow squall crosses Interstate 90. So I turned it off. It seems to me that this alert fatigue is part of what happened this time. "We get flash flood alerts all the time". And "we had no idea this "kind of event" was possible" (meaning this dangerous) were two phrases I heard many times.

I want to know if the reservoir dam bursts. I don't want to be awakened when it snows in Montana.

Many of you live in tornado alley. I would expect you get alerts very frequently, probably more often than flash flood alerts in Kerrville.

Have you turned alerts off on your phone?

[VirginiaCat]

bigsky, I do not know. I do not get alerts/notifcations from my Weather App (I am assuming that is where you get yours from?). My wife gets lightening notifications for some reason but not severe storm warnings. Strange now that I think about it.

I did not realize that in 1987 chlldren from that camp died as their Bus tried to escape flash flooding. This area sounds like parts of KY/TN/NC before the TVA.

[CitizenBBN]

Obviously a huge tragedy, but I think a valid question re alerts. I have none on my phone other than the most extreme, and not even many of those that aren't Google/android imposed.

I do have them for all the various security systems for the various things I have to monitor, and I pay a premium for 24/7 human monitoring for those as well.

But my wife gets endless weather alerts every time we get any weather, which I think does lead to that fatigue. If you get a thunderstorm or lightening alert every time one is within an hour's drive of you, you numb to them. We have been getting pop up showers and small t-storms for 3 weeks here, it's normal in July. I don't even pay attention other than minor planning.

I don't know the details of this one in Texas, but yes having your phone buzz every minor thing has to make you less sensitive to it buzzing an alert, and then when the serious one happens you may miss it. I think that's a fair question for all of us.