As Hurricane Ian slammed Florida, with wind speeds over 150mph, a number of folks have shared movies of themselves swimming by floodwaters. We’re right here to inform you why you shouldn’t do the identical.
On Wednesday, social media customers shared footage various floods across the state, which had been a results of the Class 4 hurricane (which has now been downgraded to a tropical storm). Ian has left components of Florida underwater and main infrastructures broken, with Gov Ron DeSantis describing the pure catastrophe as a “500-year flood occasion”.
Whereas officers have inspired Florida residents to keep away from the floods, one man shared a video of himself swimming inside a home in Naples Park, Florida, flooded with water from the storm.
The clip, which was shared on Twitter, has notably sparked anger amongst viewers, one in all which replied: “DO NOT DO THIS. You don’t know what could also be on this water, together with chemical compounds!”
As that critic famous, swimming in these waters is extraordinarily unsafe for a number of causes. Per the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, lingering round floodwater can pose a danger of drowning, regardless of how robust of a swimmer somebody could also be.
“Swiftly transferring shallow water might be lethal, and even shallow standing water might be harmful for young children,” the well being organisation writes on its web site.
Moreover, you don’t “precisely know” what’s inside floodwater. Floodwater can comprise a wide range of dangerous issues, together with “downed energy traces,” “bodily objects similar to lumber, automobiles, and particles,” and “human and livestock waste,” says the CDC.
In the end, the unknown supplies inside floodwaters can put your well being in danger, inflicting issues similar to a pores and skin rash to a wound an infection.
In case you do are available contact with floodwater, the CDC urges you to take a couple of security precautions afterwards. They advise you to scrub the components of their our bodies that got here involved with the water and to scrub any “contaminated” clothes “in scorching water and detergent, earlier than reusing them”.
The general public well being company emphasises that one of the best factor to do is “keep out” of those unsafe waters.
“You will need to shield your self from publicity to flood water whatever the supply of contamination,” the positioning writes. “One of the simplest ways to guard your self is to remain out of the water.”