How Do Sandbags Help During a Flood?
When floodwaters threaten homes and businesses, sandbags provide a simple, direct way for people to protect their communities. Stacked sandbags form a barrier to hold back or redirect moving water. They can be used to reinforce existing levees or construct new ones. Impromptu human assembly lines use available manpower to fill, carry and stack sandbags. In spring 2009, volunteers in Fargo, North Dakota, filled about 3.5 million sandbags to hold back the waters of the cresting Red River. Does this Spark an idea?
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Supplies
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Materials needed for sandbagging include burlap or polypropylene (plastic) bags, sand, shovels and manpower.
Benefits
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Sandbags are easy to use. The supplies are cheap and plentiful. Though they're not foolproof, sandbags have an impressive track record when used properly.
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Drawbacks
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Filling and stacking sandbags requires hours of physical labor, unless an area has access to automatic filling equipment. The plastic bags are not biodegradable and must be disposed of after floodwaters recede, especially if they become damp. And sandbags can fail, when floodwater either seeps through or crests above the highest barrier.
How to Fill
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Filling a sandbag is a two-person job. Both should wear gloves and goggles for protection. While one person holds the bag open, the other shovels in the sand. Fill bags about half full to keep them from getting too heavy. Then fold each top into a triangle and tuck under the filled bag. This saves time and effort, and the bags stack better as a result.
How to Stack
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Sandbags work best when constructed as walls 4 to 6 feet high. Place bags lengthwise and parallel to the direction the water is flowing, with the folded tops facing upstream. The bags should be staggered like bricks, offsetting the joints to create a stronger structure. Each time you lay a new row, stomp it down to create a better seal. Any structure higher than two levels should use the pyramid method for maximum stability, where one row is placed lengthwise, the next crosswise, the next lengthwise, and so on.
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Comments
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It's too bad all of north NJ is sold out of sand due to Hurricane Irene! Errrrrrrr! I will pray!
