carlfense Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 Step 1. Own/buy land in flood plain. Step 2. Land floods. Step 3. Try to force the government to pay for your losses. A group of farmers and business owners sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Wednesday, saying the agency's decisions since 2006 have contributed to major flooding in five states. The federal lawsuit said landowners should be compensated for the extensive damage they experienced — particularly during the extended 2011 flooding that devastated hundreds of thousands of acres of mostly farmland in South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri. http://www.agweb.com...sociated_Press/ Link to comment
icedavis Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 Sounds about right. The new "American Way". My hometown (Yankton) is on the last dam (Gavins Point Dam) on the Missouri. I remember visiting the dam during that time (my sister worked there at the time as well) and being blown away. If I remember right, the floodgates were only open maybe a foot or so. They were releasing water at 160,000 cubic feet per second (not including water through the powerhouse that i know of). My sister said that is enough to recycle the entire volume of the lake in 24 hours. For perspective, the floodgates are typically never open to release water and a typical volume through the powerhouse is roughly 30,000 CFS. Here are a couple images I shot during my trip home: (see them large here) http://www.flickr.co...vis/5876873060/ http://www.flickr.co...vis/5879327073/ Unfortunately most of the links I have on my flickr site for perspective are broken. One does work still though with the image below. Notice the ledge in my images above compared to the same point on the far side of the water in the image below. ALso notice the rocky outcropping in between the powerhouse and floodgates. It's the same rock formation in my image above. The water level during flooding was at the level of that red sign. I will see if I can fix those broken links on my flickr page. UPDATE: I had one more image on my flickr. Should be an even better reference for the image above. 2 Link to comment
carlfense Posted March 7, 2014 Author Share Posted March 7, 2014 I fished Lewis and Clark while that was going on. Tons of debris on the lake . . . but it wasn't until we drove down to check out the spillway that we saw how crazy it was. Great pics. Thanks. Link to comment
darkhorse85 Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 I remember trying to buy a house that was in a flood plain. I backed the hell off when we got an insurance quote. I coulln't even imagine what crop insurance (and other insurances) would have looked like in those areas. Unfortunate? Yes. Are they still stupid? Also yes. Link to comment
icedavis Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 No prob. Oh yeah, the debris was awful. Took them a while just to clear the lake side of the dam of it all. The following summer my sister took us out on the spill way (a limited access catwalk under the road) and showed us the mess and was telling us how clogged the floodgates protective cages on the lake side of the dam were. She's got some pretty interesting stories from that time and she only works in the archiving department. On a sidenote: there are a ton of cool construction and after pics of the dam in her department. Link to comment
QMany Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 Does the article specify that all 200+ landowners had land that was previously considered part of the "flood plain?" Link to comment
carlfense Posted March 7, 2014 Author Share Posted March 7, 2014 Does the article specify that all 200+ landowners had land that was previously considered part of the "flood plain?" No. Link to comment
QMany Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 Does the article specify that all 200+ landowners had land that was previously considered part of the "flood plain?" No. So "Step 1" was just conjecture? Link to comment
carlfense Posted March 7, 2014 Author Share Posted March 7, 2014 Does the article specify that all 200+ landowners had land that was previously considered part of the "flood plain?" No. So "Step 1" was just conjecture? No. Link to comment
Junior Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 Step 1. Own/buy land in flood plain. Step 2. Land floods. Step 3. Try to force the government to pay for your losses. A group of farmers and business owners sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Wednesday, saying the agency's decisions since 2006 have contributed to major flooding in five states. The federal lawsuit said landowners should be compensated for the extensive damage they experienced — particularly during the extended 2011 flooding that devastated hundreds of thousands of acres of mostly farmland in South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri. http://www.agweb.com...sociated_Press/ You forgot the step where the same people suing the government complain about people receiving government handouts and frivolous lawsuits. Link to comment
carlfense Posted March 7, 2014 Author Share Posted March 7, 2014 You forgot the step where the same people suing the government complain about people receiving government handouts and frivolous lawsuits. This is different! Link to comment
JJ Husker Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 How is this significantly different than people in the New Orleans area who live below sea level and lower than lake Pontchetrain (sp) crying and whining that the government owes them housing and relief after they get swamped by yet another hurricane? I won't even go into them being warned to get out, ignoring the warnings, and then needing to be rescued on our dime. 1 Link to comment
jsneb83 Posted March 8, 2014 Share Posted March 8, 2014 I believe the problem that the landowners had was that the Army Corps of Engineers moved so slowly to release the water from the reservoirs when they knew of all the snow that were in the mountains that would eventually melt and cause problems. They didn't start releasing the water until it was too late. Link to comment
tschu Posted March 8, 2014 Share Posted March 8, 2014 How is this significantly different than people in the New Orleans area who live below sea level and lower than lake Pontchetrain (sp) crying and whining that the government owes them housing and relief after they get swamped by yet another hurricane? I won't even go into them being warned to get out, ignoring the warnings, and then needing to be rescued on our dime. Yeah, all those poverty-stricken inner-city folk just had tons of options when it came to transporting themselves away from home and staying somewhere else for a week. Sure there were a few idiots who just chose to stay, but most of those who were stranded there just could not feasibly get out. When you have no money and no car, what are you supposed to do? Link to comment
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