Flooding

[genlock]

If the sandbag temporary dikes are so effective, why not make them permanent for the next flood?

[cgarison]

If the sandbag temporary dikes are so effective, why not make them permanent for the next flood?

I have wondered that same question time and time again. The only benefit that I see is that the work like a sea wall slowing the currents of the flood water to keep the devastation to a minimum instead of letting the water wash away the towns. Pike and Floyd counties in the 1970's comes to mind. I was only about 4 years old, but I still remember the devastation. My parents probably never new the scars they were creating when they drove me through the flood savaged valleys only days after the tragic events. Dad was in the area working to get a couple of flooded compressor stations back up and running.

[Dr. Whiplash]

If the sandbag temporary dikes are so effective, why not make them permanent for the next flood?

I asked that question many moons ago and the best (only) answer I got was that, over time, the sack material degrades in the elements. Which begs the next question...

blank stares.

[genlock]

Then build permanent walls and dikes when it is not flooding.
Make ramps to drive over them and such and then leave them there.
If houses are too low, jack them up and put dirt or cement blocks under them.
Don't just wait till the floods are upon you to beg for some bags and sand.
This is hardly rocket science.

[Arp2]

I talked to a friend of mine earlier tonight, and this subject came up. He's an engineer of some reknown, doing quite a bit of his work in your state, by the way. His response was, "A year ago, I went to a conference, and one of the presentations was called 'The Flood of Noah.' It wasn't really about Noah's flood; it was about our complete and total inability to design for every possible thing that could possibly happen over the life of the thing being designed. As soon as you've done a perfect job designing for the 100-year-_____, along comes the 500-year-______. Once you've designed for every possible force coming from every logical angle on the one side of something, along comes the unpredictable force from the impossible angle on the other side. As far as all this flooding goes, that's easy -- cities built themselves right on bodies of water, and there's no structure that would protect them in every situation. As soon as infrastructure allowed for it, they should have built themselves up away from the water and off the floodplain...there's a reason we have that word! There isn't really anything of true historical proportion with the rain, here, either...people just love being on the water. If land happens to be a floodplain, people should just work there or visit it, not live on it. I'm actually more concerned about the crops."