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Flood Protection | Sediment Dike Summary

BACKGROUND

Flooding causes over 4 billion dollars in economic losses each year, in addition to loss of life.  Floods cause approximately 90% of all losses from natural disasters in the United States.  Direct damages occur as crops, buildings, and vehicles are washed away or destroyed.  Indirect damages result as communications, transportation, and utilities are disrupted.  Other economic losses include cleanup and emergency care costs to a community and the subsequent losses in sales and wages as businesses are interrupted.

PRESENT METHOD

Emergency flood control is typically accomplished with sandbags.  Thousands of sandbags may be required, along with extensive labor to fill, transport, and position the bags.  To date, this has been the most effective means of dealing with emergency flood conditions.

SHORTCOMINGS OF PRESENT METHOD

Some of the problems associated with the use of sandbags include:

• Extensive labor requirement to fill, transport, and position the bags
• Lack of sand availability in some locations
• Time required to erect barrier to flood waters

PROBLEM

The purpose of this project was to develop a method or device to overcome or minimize the problems that occur with present methods of emergency flood control.  The parameters include low cost, minimum labor, ease of transport, and the ability to erect the dike in areas inaccessible by land vehicles.

SOLUTION

The patented Sediment Dike apparatus is tube-like with a water impermeable outer membrane and a partial water pervious inner membrane. A series of ports and openings allow for filling, draining and venting of the device. The Sediment Dike is stored in a deflated and rolled up position. It is readily available and easily transported to the site of any potential flood.  The Sediment Dike can be stored in any desired quantity by local fire departments, civil defense stations, or flood management agencies. Each 100’ section of would weight roughly 75 pounds.

Upon notice of impending or existing flood conditions, the lightweight Sediment Dike could be delivered to the site and unrolled quickly.  The Sediment Dike could be supplied in sections of variable lengths and the sections could be coupled to create a barrier of any required length.  Once a pump is attached, the dike could be filled with water and sand from a local source. One 250 gpm pump could fill a 1,000 foot long, 18” nominal diameter dike with water in less than 1 hour. A slurry mix can be used to continue filling the dike with sand, rocks and/or sediment. When filled with sediment it provides full height barrier protection at approximately twice the density of water, thereby providing a solid barrier flood protection device.