Sandbagging may not be the answer

[SusieMisajon]

Does it really make that much sense to be sandbagging these levees that are at risk from flooding?

It's true that nobody wants their land to flood....but if a river is contained and all the water in it flows downriver, doesn't it make things that much more dangerous for the people living downstream...as the volume of water that ends up downstream might have been reduced by flooding further up, thereby lessening the danger of even more water heading towards the people at the bottom of the river?

After all, the small feeder streams and rivers continue to feed the main all the way down, and with no 'bloodletting', the end result could be double the amount of water for the eventual recipients further along.

This make for the argument that it might be better to let nature take it's course and rather than trying to stop it, learn where the floods happen and try to evade it for the next time by easing the water's exit path.

[salmoned]

That's right! Let's take down dem levees and let nature take it's course. Everyone who reads this - please slit your own throat so there's more Lebensraum for the rest of us downstream!

[scrivener]

I believe this was what that one Iowa city had in mind when it opened everything up for a controlled flooding. It seems to have done the job, mostly.

[anapuni808]

I grew up in the Birdland Park area of Des Moines, Iowa - they got flooded because the levees didn't hold, regardless of sandbagging. and yes, they did stop trying to keep the levee from bursting. and yes, that was my old high school, North High that got hit pretty bad with flood water.

when i was young, they didn't have the levees around that area - and it still flooded but didn't seem as bad as now. I don't remember ever having to evacuate..........just being scared that i would wake up in the morning to a house surrounded by water. but that never happened.

personally, i think that building all the levees to keep the water back is a mistake. that ole river is gonna go where it wants to go & the levees just make it harder to get there.

[Leo Lakio]

Thinking about Susie's post, the challenge I see is this: how, given the circumstances of the present day, do you phrase an argument to convince any person (living anywhere along the upper half of the Mississippi River floodplain) that they should sacrifice their home, their business or their farm, in order to save the home, business or farm of another person living farther downstream?

[SusieMisajon]

Thinking about Susie's post, the challenge I see is this: how, given the circumstances of the present day, do you phrase an argument to convince any person (living anywhere along the upper half of the Mississippi River floodplain) that they should sacrifice their home, their business or their farm, in order to save the home, business or farm of another person living farther downstream?

Sad, huh?

Save the corn and to heck with the people in the Mississippi Delta....who are gonna get the full brunt of the downstream flow. What grows down there? Who are the people down there?

[SusieMisajon]

Funny...when I began this thread I only wondered about if the engineers were thinking about the consequences or not (kinda like importing mongoose to killl rats). It's only with the reactions that the politics comes out.

[Leo Lakio]

Politics? My question wasn't about politics - it was serious. How do you tell one group of people that their circumstances have less value than another?

How would you phrase it, Susie, if you had to face a group of Iowans and say they have to sacrifice their world for the sake of the Missourians?

No, I am sure that the Army Corps of Engineers, when designing a lock-and-dam and levee system long ago (because a relatively young and growing United States felt they could gain great benefit from "taming" the Mighty Mississippi for improved shipping lanes to the Gulf of Mexico), were not aware of all the potential drawbacks of such a system, especially when combined with factors not dreamed of at the time (such as the possibility of global warming having an effect on weather patters). With the benefit of hindsight, we now have a better understanding of some of the effects we trigger when we try to defeat nature's paths.

It's sorta like thinking that offshore oil drilling, as a potential solution to rising fuel prices, won't have any negative environmental impact decades down the road. (There - now you got politics. ;))

[SusieMisajon]

Politics? My question wasn't about politics - it was serious. How do you tell one group of people that their circumstances have less value than another?

How would you phrase it, Susie, if you had to face a group of Iowans and say they have to sacrifice their world for the sake of the Missourians?

No, I am sure that the Army Corps of Engineers, when designing a lock-and-dam and levee system long ago (because a relatively young and growing United States felt they could gain great benefit from "taming" the Mighty Mississippi for improved shipping lanes to the Gulf of Mexico), were not aware of all the potential drawbacks of such a system, especially when combined with factors not dreamed of at the time (such as the possibility of global warming having an effect on weather patters). With the benefit of hindsight, we now have a better understanding of some of the effects we trigger when we try to defeat nature's paths.

It's sorta like thinking that offshore oil drilling, as a potential solution to rising fuel prices, won't have any negative environmental impact decades down the road. (There - now you got politics. ;))

Oh. Oops.

I wasn't speaking of the long-ago system being put in. What I meant was about the way that the water is flowing today. (just to be clear)

It's gone in my mind from wondering if they were making a mistake with channeling the river...to wondering if they were prepared to save the corn first. So it went political.

I don't think they'd tell anybody that's the idea, anyway...if it were...that would be fatal and VERY political.

BTW...is anything being done to prepare for those people who do live down there where the water will be aiming at?

[Leo Lakio]

wondering if they were prepared to save the corn first.The corn (and soybean) crops weren't saved, nor was there much of an attempt to do so; it's a huge loss for the region.
BTW...is anything being done to prepare for those people who do live down there where the water will be aiming at?Yeah ... sandbagging the levees. So we come full circle.

[timkona]

Anybody building a home in risky areas should just build a good old post and pier house about 10 feet off the ground. Problem solved.

[Leo Lakio]

Anybody building a home in risky areas should just build a good old post and pier house about 10 feet off the ground. Problem solved.I love it when you get sarcastic, Tim, but I'm not sure most people will recognize it without you adding a smiley-face.

[timkona]

How is that sarcastic? I don't get it.