2_i 

This is a very sad situation in the area of Montecito in S California, where people perished under mudslide and many continue to be missing. For me this particularly hits home as I lived for a while a 40min bike ride from there. When rains started in winter, barely noticeable streams were turning into rivers.

If you look at photos from the disaster area, such as on the site of USA Today, you can notice those who are still there use bikes to move around. The bikes provide a practical mode of transportation when roads are under mud and water and debris. In fact, at my current location, when the winter weather is at its worst and no car can make it into the street in my subdivision I am often the only one who gets out of the subdivision because I usually just need to push my bike through out up to some major road.

RIP to the lost souls

CliffordK

I was wondering what happened to all of Oregon's rain last month.

It depends on the situation. I've ridden on snow and ice a while ago and didn't like it. One particularly bad day, I didn't want to drive either, so I actually walked the few miles to school that day.

I'm not sure I'd want to ride my bike through a flooded stream any more than I'd like to drive through it, but the bike does afford one more alternatives.

You are right, however, there are times when one's road access might be limited, but the roads themselves may be reasonably clean, and good for cycling, especially if there are fewer than normal cars on the road.

TimothyH

May God have mercy on the souls of the dead.

Be sure to check on the elderly and ask neighbors with infants if they need anything from the store. Sometimes a knock on the door is all it takes.


-Tim-

eja_ bottecchia

Montecito, and the surrounding hillsides, is part of my regular Sunday ride.

The disaster struck in the middle of the night, when residents were sleeping.

The frustrating thing is that the most heavily impacted area was only under voluntary evacuation. The mandatory evacuations were just to the North. No one thought the debris and mud were going to hit the areas it did. Once again, Mother Nature has the last word.

In So. Cal., and most of the Southwest, river and creek bed are very shallow. When heavy rains hit, the running waters overwhelm the banks and flooding occurs.

The pictures in USA today do not even begin to convey the magnitude of the disaster. Some of the boulders carried by the debris flow are bigger than VW bugs and far heavier. The mangled wreckage of cars tossed about like Matchbox toys and the sight of homes swept off their foundations and crushed like a bunch of sticks is terrifying.

Such a peaceful and tranquil community has been turned into something out of a war movie. It will take a very long time to recover.

RIP to the lost souls and prayers for the countless missing and still unaccounted for.

Maelochs

The zombies can't balance well, so when the zombie apocalypse arrives, you will be set.

However, the roving gangs of outlaw humans will kill you for your bike and use your corpse as zombie bait, so you will be dead.

As for the rest .... even the best MTB would be hard-pressed to deal with some post-disaster situations---depends what the disaster is.

If the disaster's impact on you was such that you could still consider how to commute .... you got lucky-----and I'd call the boss and say i couldn't make it to work because of the disaster, and go ride my bike.

Also ... if you have to be in a disaster, be an American ... because you will get emergency support services better than most people in the world get as regular services on a daily basis.

Don't be an American from Puerto Rico though. Those people are Still living with the kind of post-disaster conditions we see in Cali now ... months after the storm hit.

wschruba

Your observation is accurate--when there was widespread flooding/road damage post Hurricane Sandy, locals in the areas that weren't evacuated used bicycles to get around. Ditto in the area I was living during Hurricane Irene (though the damage was far less). There was a noticeable uptick in people bringing in bicycles to area shops that hadn't been ridden with flat tires, etc...

I'd suspect part of the lure is that it is easy to keep cars away from something (either on purpose/by nature), but not bicycles. A downed tree can easily be circumvented (and I've done it many times under normal weather), whereas a car may be stuck in gridlock for 20-30 minutes because a line of people piled up behind them. Deep/impassable obstacles by a bicycle can often be walked over, pushing the bike--a mean feat for a car.

Tragedy and loss of life aside, the bicycle remains one of the more efficient vehicles for moving around poor infrastructure.

fietsbob

Mudslides are even more powerful , because of the soil mass, but a volcanic Lahar,, like flowed down the slopes

of Mt St Helens

had do much volume or ash & Mud flowing in the instantly molten snow pack water.

And you still see it piled high along the Cowlitz river ..




https://www.dnr.wa.gov/programs-and-...oes-and-lahars

General Geoff

Keep the bike light enough to lift over your shoulder, and you can go pretty much anywhere with it.