Hesco barrier levee breaks-Downtown Davenport flooded

[Knownothing]

Facts dont care if you disagree.

Flooding events are becoming more frequent and more severe thanks to climate change.

Where are your facts. Here are the 3 main reasons flooding seems to happen more often. See I am down with Climate change. However, you can't just chalk everything up to it.

Over the last 50 years, the population of the United States has doubled (U.S. census), so any flood tends to affect a lot more people now. That makes it feel like the floods are more severe.

• The media seems to pile on the coverage whenever any flood happens anywhere, so you hear about floods more now than you used to.

• Floods today are more severe because of changes that people have made to the landscape

 

[intrepid27]

Climate change causing more frequent high-volume rain events, and reckless planning about water management (ie pavement, tiling too much, building in dumb places, etc) are NOT mutually exclusive contributors to flooding.

Localities need to get seriously smarter about water management, because this problem WILL get worse. And frankly, even if climate change is NOT a thing, why not plan smarter about water mgmt anyway??? I've never understood why people build in low places.

Even without changing weather patterns this problem is gong to continue to get worse. When commodity prices were high 4-5 yeas ago there was a tremendous amount of new drainage tile put in. Every time a piece of land gets developed for housing the drainage is improved.
Miles of levees do not allow flood plains to be a relief vale for the river. Everything adds to more water moving down less space. No where to go but up.

Changing gears- there's a great book called Rising Tide by John Barry that chronicals early attempts at flood control on the Mississippi River. It also has a very insightful backstory about race relations in the South. Very easy reading.

 

[Cyclonepride]

Where are your facts. Here are the 3 main reasons flooding seems to happen more often. See I am down with Climate change. However, you can't just chalk everything up to it.

Over the last 50 years, the population of the United States has doubled (U.S. census), so any flood tends to affect a lot more people now. That makes it feel like the floods are more severe.

• The media seems to pile on the coverage whenever any flood happens anywhere, so you hear about floods more now than you used to.

• Floods today are more severe because of changes that people have made to the landscape

No doubt. It's always flooding somewhere, and there's always a drought somewhere. The locations just change year to year.

 

[Knownothing]

No doubt. It's always flooding somewhere, and there's always a drought somewhere. The locations just change year to year.

Seems like in the Des Moines area we start the year with some sort of flooding, by mid summer they are talking about the drought. Just the way it is, always was, and always will be.

 

[ArgentCy]

It's amazing Des Moines didn't see more problems this year. Right in the middle of major flooding on larger rivers. I think the two large dams did the job this year.

 

[cycloner29]

Thought it was kinda funny that the Army Corp is now going to lower Red Rock and Saylorville this fall to allow them to hold more in the spring to help reduce the outflows of both, so to try and avoid what happened this spring with the huge outflows. These folks really are rocket scientists!!

 

[Cyclonesrule91]

It's amazing Des Moines didn't see more problems this year. Right in the middle of major flooding on larger rivers. I think the two large dams did the job this year.

Des Moines didn't see more problems this year because the area that drains towards to Saylorville dam did not get the huge rains that the areas that drain to the MS River or in the case of earlier flooding to the MO River.

 

[ArgentCy]

It's only taken them 20 years. The flood gates here have been fully open since March.

 

[ArgentCy]

Des Moines didn't see more problems this year because the area that drains towards to Saylorville dam did not get the huge rains that the areas that drain to the MS River or in the case of earlier flooding to the MO River.

So you are trying to say that this water was from a storm 1.5 months ago? Northern Iowa got plenty of snow and rain. The dams did their job, barely.

 

[TruClone]

Why haven't they built a permanent flood barrier?

Because the cost of doing temporary levees each flood event is way cheaper in the long run than doing a permanent wall. Also having a view of the river is very important to the city as it the only major city in the Quad Cities without one. East Moline and Moline don't have one east of I-74 but the impact along there is usually minimal.

 

[Knownothing]

I thought a lot of the flooding this year was due to the water backup when the ice melted and blocked the water flow. Im probably wrong. Just what I was thinking.

 

[chuckd4735]

Even without changing weather patterns this problem is gong to continue to get worse. When commodity prices were high 4-5 yeas ago there was a tremendous amount of new drainage tile put in. Every time a piece of land gets developed for housing the drainage is improved.
Miles of levees do not allow flood plains to be a relief vale for the river. Everything adds to more water moving down less space. No where to go but up.

Changing gears- there's a great book called Rising Tide by John Barry that chronicals early attempts at flood control on the Mississippi River. It also has a very insightful backstory about race relations in the South. Very easy reading.

Just look at how little crop rotation there has been for the last 20+ years since we started subsidizing ethanol. Ethanol, the thing that was supposed to help the environment...

 

[Cdiedrick]

Or it's a result of neary every inch of ground in this State being tiled or placed into a storm sewer and outleted into the nearest water way, rather then being soaked up by the ground.

Grid tiling is a huge business. Someday almost every field will be drained this way. Puts natural waterways aren’t designed to hold that much water, so..... Flooding will get more common.

 

[ArgentCy]

I thought a lot of the flooding this year was due to the water backup when the ice melted and blocked the water flow. Im probably wrong. Just what I was thinking.

This is what I though at first but the ice has been melted for what a month now? There is a ton more water coming than what most everyone knew / expected.

 

[wxman1]

Because the cost of doing temporary levees each flood event is way cheaper in the long run than doing a permanent wall. Also having a view of the river is very important to the city as it the only major city in the Quad Cities without one. East Moline and Moline don't have one east of I-74 but the impact along there is usually minimal.

Add on the fact that cities like Davenport and CR can't get federal funding due to the Army Corps rankings of necessity that take population and what not into account.

That being said...I am not a flood protections type of guy. All it does is cause more problems down stream.

 

[alarson]

Where are your facts. Here are the 3 main reasons flooding seems to happen more often. See I am down with Climate change. However, you can't just chalk everything up to it.

Over the last 50 years, the population of the United States has doubled (U.S. census), so any flood tends to affect a lot more people now. That makes it feel like the floods are more severe.

• The media seems to pile on the coverage whenever any flood happens anywhere, so you hear about floods more now than you used to.

• Floods today are more severe because of changes that people have made to the landscape

A couple to start

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-midwest-is-getting-drenched-and-its-causing-big-problems/

https://qctimes.com/news/local/midw...cle_0b5993d5-bf85-5729-b113-c71e836893d8.html

 

[Walden4Prez]

Or it's a result of neary every inch of ground in this State being tiled or placed into a storm sewer and outleted into the nearest water way, rather then being soaked up by the ground.

This 1000%. No one seems to want to talk about this.

Water used to take a while to get to the streams and rivers....now every piece of land is full of tile and farmed fence row to fence row.

 

[Al_4_State]

I disagreed. Flooding has always happened. Always will happen regardless of climate change. Water goes where it goes. People need to quit with the nonsense of everything happening being blamed on climate change. Floods happen. It has nothing to do with it 99
Percent of the time

We are starting to regularly get rains in excess of 5" in northern Iowa. We've had 5-6 10"+ rains in the last 3 years.

I think that happened once in my entire life previously. The amount of rain we get, and the intensity in which it falls, have dramatically increased. The deluge style high-intensity/high-volume rains are a result of climate change.

Davenport's infrastructure failing may not be the result of climate change, but the constant flooding around the Midwest is heavily linked.

 

[Knownothing]

We are starting to regularly get rains in excess of 5" in northern Iowa. We've had 5-6 10"+ rains in the last 3 years.

I think that happened once in my entire life previously. The amount of rain we get, and the intensity in which it falls, have dramatically increased. The deluge style high-intensity/high-volume rains are a result of climate change.

Davenport's infrastructure failing may not be the result of climate change, but the constant flooding around the Midwest is heavily linked.

No. It is not heavily linked. At all. It's just not

 

[alarson]

No. It is not heavily linked. At all. It's just not

Username always checks out.