An Improved Method of Flood Mitigation
A commonly used method of protecting an area subject to impending flooding is to surround that area with a wall of sandbags. This requires transporting truckloads of sand as well as the bags to the site, filling the sandbags with shovels, and carrying the sandbags onto the wall being built. Such a procedure is extremely labor-intensive and can require hours if not days to construct a wall of sufficient height and length to protect the desired area; with an imminent flood, it could be a race against time.
If the sandbags are composed of canvas or other porous material, the floodwater could seep through the sandbags, sand being porous, and compromise the area to be protected. Finally, there is the problem of disposing of the wet sand and sandbags in an environmentally friendly manner after the flood recedes.
A method that could enable a quicker response to imminent flooding and is far less labor-intensive than sandbagging is the following. This method uses large inflatable tubes composed of a rubberized fabric, about five feet in diameter when inflated with water, several hundred feet in length, and closed at both ends. The tubes are wound around spools and deployed by being unrolled from the back of trucks surrounding the area to be protected from the flood.
Prior to being inflated, the tubes are about eight feet wide lying flat on the ground. The tubes are positioned end to end and connected to each other by fasteners around the circumference of the tubes at both ends. The tubes are then filled with water from hoses connected to openings in the tubes. The water may be pumped from fire hydrants or ambient flood water. When fully inflated, the tubes will have the cross-section of a slightly flattened circle. To stabilize the tube against rolling due to the pressure of the floodwater, the tube could be laid in a curved path.
After the floodwater has receded, the tubes can be drained, disconnected from each other, cleaned, dried, wound back onto the trucks, and stored on the spools ready for reuse.