Flash Flood Watch in Effect for Ashokan Watershed

 

The Nation­al Weath­er Ser­vice has cur­rent­ly issued a flash flood watch for the Ashokan Water­shed and much of the rest of the region. Trop­i­cal Storm Isa­ias is cur­rent­ly track­ing up the east­ern seaboard and bring­ing heavy rains and dam­ag­ing winds in its path. While the region has been abnor­mal­ly dry this sum­mer and the rain itself is wel­come, the poten­tial inten­si­ty of the down­pours could cause local­ized flood­ing.

Our Water­shed is no stranger to floods but it is still a good idea to be pre­pared. Through­out the day today, mon­i­tor the Nation­al Ocean­ic and Atmos­pher­ic Admin­is­tra­tion’s (NOAA) weath­er radio and/or local weath­er sta­tions to get updat­ed infor­ma­tion about con­di­tions. You can also mon­i­tor local stream gages by going to the Unit­ed States Geo­log­i­cal Sur­vey (USGS) web­site. The Allaben and Cold­brook stream gages are two major gages on the Eso­pus Creek.

If pos­si­ble, please stay home. High winds could top­ple trees and pow­er lines mak­ing roads impas­si­ble. In addi­tion, flood waters across road­ways are par­tic­u­lar­ly dan­ger­ous and lead to a high num­ber of injuries and fatal­i­ties each year because water depths are often deceiv­ing. Remem­ber, it only takes one foot of mov­ing water to move most pas­sen­ger cars and six inch­es of mov­ing water to knock a per­son over. If you come across a flood­ed road­way always Turn Around Don’t Drown!

If your local­i­ty issues evac­u­a­tion orders please evac­u­ate to your near­est emer­gency shel­ter imme­di­ate­ly and fol­low all instruc­tions from local offi­cials and emer­gency respon­ders.

For more infor­ma­tion on flood pre­pared­ness and what to do in an emer­gency you can view the AWSMP Flood Emer­gency Pre­pared­ness Guide. Also be sure to check out resources from FEMA’s Ready.gov web­site and the NY Exten­sion Dis­as­ter Edu­ca­tion Net­work (NY EDEN) web­site.

 

Tags: flash flood, flood, flood preparedness