Missouri River - calling all engineers?

[introspective]

Hey the Missouri River is flooding very much like the Mississippi River started to flood back during Katrina.

This may sound like back-paddling, but does the Missouri need a dam? or maybe a few small dams?

[Rabid Monk]

You need something like Duff's Ditch.

Until then, sandbag dikes everywhere.

[introspective]

Nice idea. I never thought of diverting an entire river. It affects something, but the engineers can work it out. What about several dams? For example:
one at X feet high, two at Y feet high, Three at Z feet high? It would affect things as well, but maybe less impact than one gigantic dam?

Sandbagging is simply ancient. It looks so pitiful I simply can't believe we still do sandbagging as a solution to this. Over and over again, we wait for a damn [or is it dam] river to overflow or get near overflowing, and then we call out the national guard with ONE tractor [did everyone see that] and a bunch of people running around with sandbags.

[Miglin]

The sand bags won't work unless you duct tape them to the ground.

That's this soon-to-be engineer's analysis.

[Rabid Monk]

Originally Posted by Miglin

The sand bags won't work unless you duct tape them to the ground.

That's this soon-to-be engineer's analysis.

Not necessary.
You can, if you want a more secure dike, dig a trench one sandbag deep by 2 sandbags wide for the base.
In 1997, we just made them wide and stable.
( Winnipeg was built on a floodplain, so, much like the unexpected tornados in tornado alley, we gt floods. Kinda dumb location for a city, imho.)


@ Introspective: A minor point: The floodway does not divert the whole river. Rather, it adds a section for overflow to use. They open the gae aroudnd springtime normally, when the melt causes the river to swell. They are also expanding it. The rest of the time the ditch is used for other purposes. Downhill skiing (well, as much as we can in Manitoba), off-roading, etc.

[ThatReallyHurt]

Originally Posted by Rabid Monk

In 1997, we just made them wide and stable.

Man, that sucked... I have never been as tired and dirty as I was then...

[fences_like_a_lemur]

Originally Posted by introspective

one at X feet high, two at Y feet high, Three at Z feet high? It would affect things as well, but maybe less impact than one gigantic dam?

That is way worse that just one dam. Having 6 of them would screw up the river more and would cause even more flooding. Why do think dams will even fix it in the first place? By building a dam, you are spending millions if not billions of dollars and then you back up the water behind it causing floods. You also need a good place to dam it; you can't just decide to go and throw a dam into any river because it can redirect and go around it in some areas.

Originally Posted by Miglin

The sand bags won't work unless you duct tape them to the ground.

That's this soon-to-be engineer's analysis.

I pray to God that you're not going into civil engineering...or any type of engineering for that matter. I sincerely hope you fail all your tests.

That is this soon-to-be an engineer's advice.

[telkanuru]

Learn to not live in a flood plain?

Or, houses that can float!

Believe me, I understand the utility of rivers as transportation and for commerce, not to mention land avaliability but repeating the same experiment multiple times expecting different results is texbook insanity.

[introspective]

Originally Posted by Miglin

The sand bags won't work unless you duct tape them to the ground.

That's this soon-to-be engineer's analysis.

You know the duct tape thing is overplayed. I would like to see some of these prima donna's with their 'duct tape' carry a sandbag to the river's edge and do something constructive. But Fences Like a Lemur probably has the right answer: too many dams might make things worse than ever. What about building artifical waterfalls?

[fences_like_a_lemur]

Originally Posted by introspective

You know the duct tape thing is overplayed. I would like to see some of these prima donna's with their 'duct tape' carry a sandbag to the river's edge and do something constructive. But Fences Like a Lemur probably has the right answer: too many dams might make things worse than ever. What about building artifical waterfalls?

I have a better idea!

Let's just **** up our world so that it's all poluted and poisoned and so the oceans start going hay wire and killing fish, and then the polar caps start melting! Then when all life is ****ed up, we just laugh and don't do squat to fix it!

Oh wait...I think governments around the world might have already copyrighted that idea...

[introspective]

I know and I agree. I went to a meeting to help the environment and no one can do ethanol anymore. I asked "why" and they didn't know, so I mentioned that maybe they were afraid that sugarcane fields would get burned down and then no-fuel. But then I asked: can we make Ethanol in the lab? It might be great if we had laboratory made Ethanol made in Industrial plants and shipped out like gas is.

Yawn. Well, maybe it's best to just wait until the next millinium. I almost don't care very much anymore.

[fences_like_a_lemur]

Originally Posted by introspective

I know and I agree. I went to a meeting to help the environment and no one can do ethanol anymore. I asked "why" and they didn't know, so I mentioned that maybe they were afraid that sugarcane fields would get burned down and then no-fuel. But then I asked: can we make Ethanol in the lab? It might be great if we had laboratory made Ethanol made in Industrial plants and shipped out like gas is.

The thing about ethanol is that they can't produce enough of it at this point in time to make that big of a difference. And unless they learn how to make it a lot more efficiently then they won't ever be able to produce anywhere near enough. But hopefully in the next few months or years they will come up with some brilliant idea to make our gas prices go down. I for one say that we just invade the middle east -hey, we've already started- and seize control of all the oil producing countries. Then we take control of the oil and import it for free to the US where we can live in luxury and the middle east people can continue to hate us with a fiery passion!

[Miglin]

Originally Posted by introspective

You know the duct tape thing is overplayed. I would like to see some of these prima donna's with their 'duct tape' carry a sandbag to the river's edge and do something constructive. But Fences Like a Lemur probably has the right answer: too many dams might make things worse than ever. What about building artifical waterfalls?

I'll sandbag YOUR river's edge... or... something...

Yeah, I went there.