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Eight days remain before the traditional March 1 start of the spring snowmelt runoff season. The Army Corps of Engineers says that although no flooding is expected, it will be ready for potential high water.
"We are in pretty good shape,'' Col. Bob Ruch, commander of the Omaha District, told about 70 people from across the region who gathered Tuesday in Omaha to review flood-fight preparedness plans.
"There's a world of difference out there between last year and this year,'' he said, referring to the virtual absence of snowpack on the Northern Plains this winter.
Still, there has never been a year in which at least a flash flood didn't strike somewhere in the Missouri River basin, Ruch said.
With that history of high water and the widespread damage caused by last year's unprecedented Missouri River flooding, the corps worked through the winter to meet its self-imposed March 1 deadline to complete critical repairs.
This means that breached river levees near Hamburg, Iowa, and Watson, Mo.; pumping stations in Council Bluffs levees; and severely eroded levees elsewhere will be repaired and ready.
Omaha-based corps engineers shared examples of flood-fighting products and techniques that worked well and not so well during last year's flood.
Besides contingents from Omaha and Council Bluffs, the crowd included city, county and state emergency managers from Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota and officials from levee districts, electric utilities and natural resources districts.
"Be preventative. Be diligent,'' said Bryan Flere, the corps' levee safety manager.
Matt Krajewski, a corps operations manager, displayed photos of sandbagging operations. Some efforts were better at stopping bullets than water, he said.
The secret to an effective sandbag is to fill it only half to two-thirds full and build a levee with a pyramid-shaped cross section.
"We got very, very good at this," Krajewski said.
John Bartel, part of a new corps team assigned to restore the district's flood protection systems, said no levee is perfect.
"Everything you use in flood-fighting — even earthen levees — will leak," he said.
The corps has conducted the pre-flood-season training annually for a decade.
Contact the writer:
402-444-1127, david.hendee@owh.com
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