On a Sunday in March 2010, city officials in Fargo, N.D., were lighting cigars to celebrate their victory over the Red River. Over the weekend, love (t.antj.link) residents had waited to see if the sandbags they had placed and the clay dikes, compliments of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, would hold. They knew that if these defenses failed, the Red River, swollen with melted snows, would rush into their homes. Fargo was still a bit scarred from 2009, when the Red River flooded before. Thousands of residents scrambled to protect their homes and many were forced to evacuate. The following year, they were ready with millions of sandbags, dating and luckily, the river subsided. One resident told The Christian Science Monitor that he was able to relax and watch the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship (a.k.a. 20 years. In June 2010, they found themselves holding their breaths to see if the fortress of sandbags around their house would hold back the 4 feet (1.2 meters) of water rushing through their backyard. Th is c ontent has been written by GSA Conte nt Generator Dem over sion !
The Kerkmans had never experienced anything like the encroaching waters, the closest previous flood danger being about 400 feet (121 meters) away. If you look up sandbags in the dictionary, you'll find a definition that talks about a bag stuffed to the seams with sand. You'll also learn that these stout bags can serve as weapons, provide stability or, perhaps most relevant to fearful homeowners, protect against the effects of a raging river. How did a simple bag of sand become one of the best ways we have to save our homes from hurricanes and floods? In the next section, we'll talk about what a sandbag looks like and why it does what it does. Before you start scooping sand from the local playground's sandbox into a plastic grocery bag, we should tell you a few things about how sandbags are put together. First, sandbags are changing with the times. Th is post was created wi th t he help of GSA Con tent Generator Demoversi on!
Burlap once was a popular material to use, but today's bag of choice is polypropylene plastic. This kind of plastic is similar to the kind you might see in a fertilizer bag. Polypropylene bags win out over other material because they won't decompose as easily when subjected to abuse by the elements. Second, the common sizes for today's sandbags measure around 14 inches wide by 26 inches long (36 centimeters by 66 centimeters), 13 inches by 30 inches (33 centimeters by 76 centimeters) or something close to these measurements. If you can't quite picture that, a USA Today newspaper, folded out, measures 12 inches by 22 inches (30 centimeters by 56 centimeters). Bags with other dimensions will work, but you don't want them to be too large. An optimally-filled sandbag should weigh around 40 pounds (18 kilograms). An overstuffed sandbag doesn't have enough give, and you want the filled bag to mold into the gaps in the sandbag wall. In an emergency situation, like when an overflowing river is about to convert your den into a swimming pool, you could turn to clay and gravel, but these materials are not preferred. This c on tent has been created by G SA Content Generator Demoversion.
Why? Remember that you're going to have volunteers filling these bags as quickly as they can. Clay and gravel are harder to manipulate and handle, so it's going to take the volunteers longer to do their job. When the river is knocking at your door, time is certainly of the essence. As we discuss more about how sandbags do their job, you'll learn why sand works as well as it does. With science advancing in so many areas, why do we still use this low-tech solution to control floodwaters? First, sandbags are easy to use. To prepare sandbags, it only takes a few volunteers with shovels, gloves and some knowledge of safety precautions. When a flood is impending, everyone has to work fast, so you don't have the opportunity to bring in experts and engineers, let them scratch their chins and dating figure out the best thing to do. You need quick action; you want all hands on deck and supplies that are easy to get.
It's hard work to make sandbags, but it's not rocket science. The bags and the sand are cheap to buy, so most people can use these. You can buy the actual bags in quantities ranging from 10 to thousands per box. The average person who is about to be knee-deep in water in his or her living room may not have thought to order sandbags in advance, but this isn't a cause for concern. You'll find the bags at a Home Depot or any similar type of store. When you go to buy your sand, ideally, dating you want to buy a coarse-grained type of sand. Think of sandbox or playground sand as high quality and scale down from there. If you need a better guideline, try this one: Unused sand from sandbags ends up in gardens as soil or fill. People also save it to sand icy roads in wintertime. That's the kind of sand you're looking for; however, in an emergency, sand is sand.