Pueblog USa
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Of Floods and Levees
How safe are our levees?
Over the last few years, we’ve heard some reports of serious problems with our system of levees. We have the disaster in New Orleans where the levees—which had not been properly upgraded—were demolished by Hurricane Katrina. Now we see Cedar Rapids and Des Moines experiencing similar disasters because the levees were not up to the task.
In the former, it was a major storm lashing the works. In this iteration, it’s just an awful lot of water that is higher than the Corps of Engineers seem to have anticipated. And this is supposedly the proverbial 500-year flood.
It makes me wonder whether or not our levees, along the Fountain are up to this sort of flood. Or are they, as appears in Iowa, only built for the 100-year sort of flood.
There’s a picture up on Fox News showing where one of the two ‘breaks’ in levees occurred in Des Moines. And guess what….there WAS no levee there. Except for the few piles of pathetic dirt someone tried to shove on the edge of the road. Personally, I’m seeing what local Emergency Management might attempt at the I25 overpass at 13th Street, vis-a-vis the Fountain. Some dirt piled up to face a 100-year flood and it not holding up to the challenge of the moment. Let alone a 500-year deluge. And it makes me wonder….what would happen to the Northside neighborhoods and businesses. Or downtown business for that matter.
I’d like to see the Pueblo County Emergency Management Department plans to deal with such an emergency.
Hopefully, they’re a bit more comprehensive than sending the police through the neighborhood telling people to get out over a bullhorn pointed out the window of their cruiser…..
UPDATE Another One Busted [141616 Jun 08]: Fox News reports another levee, this one on the Mississippi River as it passes Illinois, has busted.
(0) Comments • Permalink