ď
Why yes they are real numbers. They come from the Harvard Center for risk analysis book titled, Risk: A practical guide for deciding what's really safe and what's really dangerous in the world around you.
ok, glad they are real numbers, but since i don't have that book, i don't know there conditions. Were snowmobile numbers based on number of registered snowmobiles? Or a poll? Where did the fatality numbers come from to calculate percentages? Flood deaths from what portion of a population? Those living in a flood zone? Or cross section including those in desert areas. How was that base group determined? All those questions are more or less rhetorical because what a person (even at harvard) chooses to make their statistics convey does not necessarily translate into real word scenarios or examples.
I'll look up the cooke city avy report where two riders were in a slide. It was on Henderson mountain a few days after the fatal one (RIP Donnie) also on Henderson.
In the end we all agree getting caught in an avalanche or assisting in a rescue are rare, especially if we use our training to reduce risk. But we carry transceivers, probes and shovels because of that "what if". If the arguement is about odds (getting separated from your sled and shovel, or getting caught in an avy at all) and a person truly thinks the odds are that remote, why would one even carry a shovel and probe at all?
The same field experts that train you to understand avy terrain, risk and train you to use your shovel, probe, and transceiver to perform rescues do train us to keep shovel and probe on our person. Why ignore that part of their training?
One can't say you are trained and follow that training if one chooses to ignore parts of it. Like ignoring that cellphones can interfere and keeping your cellphone right over your transceiver. Or ignoring the recommended distance between probes while doing your spiral because its "faster to make them further apart and the odds are you will still get a strike on the person".
We all want to do our best for ourselves and our riding partners. Why not follow ALL aspects of avalanche preparedness best practices.