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The
implementation of a statewide GIS for Low Water Crossings (LWCs) and Swift
Water Rescues (SWRs) to identify high risk areas will provide the
International Flash Flood Laboratory (IFFL), the Texas Flash Flood Coalition
(TFFC), the Texas Department of Health Services and other Texas agencies
with a better understanding of the relationship between the number and
locations of these sites and present spatial resources that can be used to
prevent future deaths and injuries related to flash floods.
Elite Water
Rescue Prevention Consultants created this GIS containing both documented
and potential LWC sites as well as SWRs reported in 2007. While it
has been an exercise in patience as information was converted from raw
information into spatial data and more than three dozen legal entities in
Texas were contacted personally to request both LWC and cost information,
the foundation EWRP Consultants has built is essential for achieving a way
to answer the questions surrounding the fact of Texas’ anomalously high
number of flood-related fatalities. As part of the process, EWRP
Consultants did research in order to elucidate the concept of a Flash Flood
Alley.
In none of
the literature were specific boundaries defined, so EWRP Consultants set
the precedent by proposing a forty-four county area of Central Texas along
the Balcones Escarpment. Now that these elements are in the GIS,
spatial and temporal correlations can be made and more complex analysis can
be done to build upon this foundation by further elucidating connections
and clarifying spatial relationships needed by the TFFC.
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