Davenport, and flooding (reprise)

The Mississippi river is busy flooding again, and this time Davenport hasn't been as lucky as last time. A lot of basements are flooded, and a lot of people are upset (understandably). But this doesn't mean that the city's strategy is a failure, as some commentators suggest (consider the 6th comment down). Heavy rain will cause flooding. Simply put, there is a limit to how much water a river, or the ground, can accept in a limited amount of time.

Does this mean that Davenport's strategy is perfect? No, it doesn't. No doubt there are storm drains that should be cleaned out, realigned, or installed. No doubt, too, there are many changes that private property owners can make to make their properties more flood resilient, such as grading, decreasing the amount of ground that is paved over (dirt absorbs water, pavement repels it), or placing flood-incompatible property in elevated locations (several businesses in Davenport's flood plain have reserved their ground floor for parking and pedestrian space, placing offices in upper floors. When the waters come in, the ground level is free of flood-damage prone property.) Note how these strategies acknowledge the inevitability of a flood, and seek to work with nature, rather than to contain it.

For those who are not convinced, who still think that Davenport should hide behind a floodwall, I'll point out the plight of those who did. For instance:
* "'We had so much faith in those levees'"
* "The mighty Mississippi overflowed 90 percent of the levees in eastern Lincoln County"

And, remember that when a levee fails, it tends to do so catastrophically, with little warning and with devastating results. If your strategy is to anticipate the flood, you'll have cleared out long before the river threatens your life.

One more thing about Davenport's flood management strategy

In my previous entry on Davenport, Ohio's flood management strategy, I forgot to mention one major point: by not erecting floodwalls and levees to protect their city, they avoid the false sense of security that those walls provide. New Orleans may be the most obvious example of why that sense of security is false, but it is by no means the only one.

* earlier this year, a levee failed in Fernley, Nevada, forcing 3500 to evacuate.
* The North Sea Flood of 1953 claimed hundreds of lives in Great Britain and several European countries.
* Several levees failed during the (United States) Midwest floods of 1993. (link is to an abstract of a research article regarding those levee failures.)
* In May of 2007, Pueblo, Colorado suffered a flood that involved failure of an informal levee. (pdf)
* ...

Why I'm happy about Davenport's flood

Davenport, Iowa, has flooded several times in the past, and it is flooded again as I write this. Davenport is not noteworthy in this, as many of the communities along the Mississippi river are facing floods, but it is noteworthy in being the largest city on the Mississippi river that is without major flood defenses. Instead, Davenport has strategically managed its floodplains, placing less vulnerable properties there, such as parking lots and parkland. Isolated properties on the plain have their own flood walls to keep water out, but these aren't designed to force the river to stay within its banks; floodwaters flow around these islands of dry space. Residences and businesses are not located in the floodplain at all, and therefor don't need to be protected by permanent levees. The city doesn't escape flooding entirely unscathed, but the costs of cleaning up parking lots and parks every seven or eight years are far less than those of paying every year to maintain a system of dikes and levees.

Consider photos at http://quadcityimages.blogspot.com/2008/04/2008-flood-update-monday-afternoon.html

What makes me happy about all of this is that the strategy is working, and other flood-prone communities may take notice of Davenport's success and alter their own flood management strategies. Mother Nature always wins; work with her, not against her.