Why?
Mostly because they cover a much larger area and if people get hypothermic or can't swim (for whatever the reason) (the reason could be old age, infirmity or a wound or a disability) but if you can't swim or get hypothermia (loss of bodily heat from being exposed to cold water or cold rain and wind or a combination) you cannot think clearly and make good decisions and often in this situation with your mind impaired with hypothermia you eventually can't think your way out of this situation and you drown or go unconscious form hypothermia and go face down in the water and drown. I would say most people walking who drown likely have hypothermia, go unconscious and drown by fainting from hypothermia.
The most scary time I got hypothermia (I got this more than once) luckily wasn't in a flooding situation. It was when I high centered a VW Camper Van belonging to my wife in the early 1980s at about 9000 feet on Mt. Shasta on a dirt rocked road. I was around 32 or 33 years old and my wife and I could easily jog 1 to 5 miles and this day it was going to be 5 miles in the rain to get to a friends cabin before the VW got snowed in. But, as we jogged town a remote road on Mt. Shasta and saw no one we began to hallucinate from hypothermia (loss of heat in the body) because we didn't have waterproof rain slickers to stay dry and we soaked clean through in just above freezing weather 33 to 38 degrees Farhenheit which is the easiest to get hypothermic in if you don't have warm clothes combined with a waterproof rain poncho or plastic or something to keep the wet out.
So, around 5 miles of jogging later we reached our friends remote cabin and broke into it knowing he would be home from work soon and built a fire. He was grateful we made it alive that far in that cold a weather and drove up in his large 4 wheel drive and towed our VW camper van off it's high center and out of the snow which had covered the road and roof of it by then.
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