Quote:
Originally posted by jaguar
Someone should slap civil engineers upside the head who are stupid enough to build roads in such a stupid places, its at the bottom of a bloody hill, its similar in contruction to many rivers!
Stupid stuff, i mean christ, thats DEEP water.
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A good idea, jag, but high water can't necessarily be predicted...perhaps when the roads were built years ago, high water wasn't an issue. I would think that now, in 2001, that it is easier. But as an example...
My parents live in St. Louis's south end. St. Louis is built mostly on a high bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. However, there are a few low points, including the south end of the city. There is a large drainage canal behind my parents' house. It starts as a creek 15 miles north, and collects rainwater...it empties into the Mississippi, about 1 mile downstream from my parents. The canal, which was built in the late 1950s, is approximately 50 feet deep, and rarely fills. The first time it got rather high (35-40 feet) was in 1982.
Then came the Great Flood of 1993...
Because of the heavy amount of rains in the midwestern US that year, the Mississippi surged from its banks, wiping out homes and towns in its wake. The water backed into the River des Peres canal to a point of 52 feet high. Countless hours were spent trying to sandbag to protect homes on both sides of the canal. In the end, only street flooding along with some basement flooding occurred. No one lost their home thankfully.
The point I'm trying to make is that something such as this is not always forseeable. Houston is relatively close to the Gulf of Mexico, and I can't remember the last time that Houston got hit so badly (I believe it may have been hurricane Alicia in the early 80s, but don't quote me on that). But with our new technologies, perhaps we can attempt to prevent the damage from either happening again, or being minimal. After the floods of 1993, St. Louis built several pumping stations and redid sewer lines along the River des Peres canal to help minimize flooding.