Missouri River Flood of 2011 has raised structural concerns about Interstate 29 with damage that could take months to repair
Floodwater wreaking havoc on highway overpasses is causing structural concerns. Officials say the damage could take months to repair, keeping Interstate 29 closed for quite some time.
The Iowa Department of Transportation gave KETV NewsWatch 7 an exclusive look at the long-term damage between Sidney, Iowa, and Nebraska City, Nebraska.
The rising Missouri River has literally washed away parts of the interstate, and it’ll only get worse as the water sticks around.
When you’re talking about billions of gallons of water, there’s little you can do to stop it. Twisted and torn rail lines are proof of how powerful a flood can be. Exit ramps don’t stand a chance either.
The water has washed away some of the dirt that shores up the north portion of the overpasses where Highway 2 and Interstate 29 meet.
“This will all have to be inspected. Our engineers will have to come down, and everything's going to have to be possibly redone. But, I mean, this is way down the line -- in the future,” Jeff McQueen said.
A fast-moving current has left livelihoods looking like islands, and homes to the north remain unlivable.
“This is the first time I've ever seen the Missouri act like this,” McQueen said.
http://www.ketv.com/missouri-river-flooding-extended-coverage/28565262/detail.html
The North Dakota State Fair in Minot has been canceled because of Souris River flooding.
The fair's board made the decision at an emergency meeting on Saturday. Fair manager Rene Korslien says a revised forecast by the National Weather Service shows that the river will recede slower than expected.
Korslien tells the Minot Daily News that the situation changed dramatically in the last two weeks, punctuated by heavy rains that fell on Friday.
Korslien says fair officials received an "outpouring of support" last month when plans were announced to proceed with the event.
http://www.mitchellrepublic.com/event/article/id/54615
Bismark Tribune | US Army Corps of Engineers discusses this year’s Missouri River reservoir system releases and next year’s plans
Bismarck, North Dakota
The Army Corps of Engineers leadership describes its reservoir system as a bathtub that can contain enough water to cover Nebraska 18 inches deep.
That amount is 73.1 million acre feet — the volume that would cover 73.1 million acres with a foot of water.
Each flood season, the corps tries to reserve 16.3 million acre feet of storage capacity for flood control across the Missouri River drainage system. In May and June the system received 24.8 million acre feet of snowmelt and rainfall.
“We have a firehouse coming in, the bathtub is full, we have to drain more water,” said Jody Farhat, chief of the corps’ Missouri River basin management, in a meeting with corps leadership and the Bismarck Tribune’s editorial board.
This June set the record for runoff in the Missouri system, and May took third among wettest months on record.
“And March and April were nothing to shake a stick at,” Farhat said.
The average surface elevation of Lake Sakakawea in March was 1,838 feet above sea level, and corps officials plan to begin next year’s flood season at a similar elevation. To lower the elevation further would prolong the flood, keeping people from their homes and preventing the corps from repairing infrastructure strained by historic flows, officials said.
“Any additional water we release to do that means higher flows for a longer period of time,” Farhat said.
The corps’ permanent levees downstream and its dams, spillways and tunnels across the system have been tested this year and officials expect to find damage when the water goes down.
“We’re going to discover some, let’s be honest. They’ve been run hard this year,” said Col. Robert Ruch, commander of the corps’ Omaha district.
Farhat said that leading up to this, spring releases from Garrison were higher than usual, but it is difficult to run releases high in the winter.
“There are are constraints on what Jody can release in the winter months,” said Brig. Gen. John McMahon, commander of the corps’ Northwestern Division.
Ice can cause dramatic rises while it is forming on the river, and the corps’ strategy is keep releases low until the freeze begins and then slowly step up releases as spring approaches, Farhat said.
The corps leadership also addressed how it handled its forecasting in late May when peak releases were repeatedly upped from 75,000 cubic feet per second to 150,000 cfs over the course of a few days.
The corps bases its planning on a combination of predicted weather and events as they happen, resulting in forecasts that sometimes change rapidly, as they did after heavy rain in Montana in late May dropped a year’s worth of precipitation in a matter of days.
“We like to make our decisions on actual conditions,” Farhat said. “We want to see it at the gauges to make sure we’re not making decisions only on forecasts.”
The corps’ forecast for total 2011 runoff is 57.7 million acre feet, the highest on record and 8.7 million acre feet above the previous record set in 1997. As the snow and rain accumulated in the spring, its predictions were adjusted monthly by as much as 11 million acre feet at a time, according to Farhat.
How the corps manages its reservoirs is dictated by various congressionally authorized purposes, including irrigation, navigation, electricity generation, recreation and fish and wildlife management. Flood control has precedence over others, but its management of reservoirs must take other uses into account.
“I still believe there is a great public constituency behind each of these purchases,” Ruch said.
McMahon said the corps is authorized to adjust its yearly operating plans, but changes in its master manual must be authorized by Congress.
Even if the corps drastically overhauls its reservoir management system, there will still be risks posed by times of extreme weather, such as 2011’s record-breaking precipitation.
“You’ll never eliminate all the risk inherent in levees and dams,” McMahon said. “It’s very wicked problem set.”
http://bismarcktribune.com/news/local/corps-discusses-this-year-s-releases-next-year-s-plans/article_c2081b16-af31-11e0-ae8d-001cc4c03286.html
RELATED:
That amount is 73.1 million acre feet — the volume that would cover 73.1 million acres with a foot of water.
Each flood season, the corps tries to reserve 16.3 million acre feet of storage capacity for flood control across the Missouri River drainage system. In May and June the system received 24.8 million acre feet of snowmelt and rainfall.
“We have a firehouse coming in, the bathtub is full, we have to drain more water,” said Jody Farhat, chief of the corps’ Missouri River basin management, in a meeting with corps leadership and the Bismarck Tribune’s editorial board.
This June set the record for runoff in the Missouri system, and May took third among wettest months on record.
“And March and April were nothing to shake a stick at,” Farhat said.
The average surface elevation of Lake Sakakawea in March was 1,838 feet above sea level, and corps officials plan to begin next year’s flood season at a similar elevation. To lower the elevation further would prolong the flood, keeping people from their homes and preventing the corps from repairing infrastructure strained by historic flows, officials said.
“Any additional water we release to do that means higher flows for a longer period of time,” Farhat said.
The corps’ permanent levees downstream and its dams, spillways and tunnels across the system have been tested this year and officials expect to find damage when the water goes down.
“We’re going to discover some, let’s be honest. They’ve been run hard this year,” said Col. Robert Ruch, commander of the corps’ Omaha district.
Farhat said that leading up to this, spring releases from Garrison were higher than usual, but it is difficult to run releases high in the winter.
“There are are constraints on what Jody can release in the winter months,” said Brig. Gen. John McMahon, commander of the corps’ Northwestern Division.
Ice can cause dramatic rises while it is forming on the river, and the corps’ strategy is keep releases low until the freeze begins and then slowly step up releases as spring approaches, Farhat said.
The corps leadership also addressed how it handled its forecasting in late May when peak releases were repeatedly upped from 75,000 cubic feet per second to 150,000 cfs over the course of a few days.
The corps bases its planning on a combination of predicted weather and events as they happen, resulting in forecasts that sometimes change rapidly, as they did after heavy rain in Montana in late May dropped a year’s worth of precipitation in a matter of days.
“We like to make our decisions on actual conditions,” Farhat said. “We want to see it at the gauges to make sure we’re not making decisions only on forecasts.”
The corps’ forecast for total 2011 runoff is 57.7 million acre feet, the highest on record and 8.7 million acre feet above the previous record set in 1997. As the snow and rain accumulated in the spring, its predictions were adjusted monthly by as much as 11 million acre feet at a time, according to Farhat.
How the corps manages its reservoirs is dictated by various congressionally authorized purposes, including irrigation, navigation, electricity generation, recreation and fish and wildlife management. Flood control has precedence over others, but its management of reservoirs must take other uses into account.
“I still believe there is a great public constituency behind each of these purchases,” Ruch said.
McMahon said the corps is authorized to adjust its yearly operating plans, but changes in its master manual must be authorized by Congress.
Even if the corps drastically overhauls its reservoir management system, there will still be risks posed by times of extreme weather, such as 2011’s record-breaking precipitation.
“You’ll never eliminate all the risk inherent in levees and dams,” McMahon said. “It’s very wicked problem set.”
http://bismarcktribune.com/news/local/corps-discusses-this-year-s-releases-next-year-s-plans/article_c2081b16-af31-11e0-ae8d-001cc4c03286.html
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RadiationNetwork.com
Updated in real time every minute. This is the first web site where the average citizen (or anyone in the world) can see what radiation levels are anywhere in the USA at any time
Missouri River Dams and River Levels Flood Map
US ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS RELEASES NEW FORECAST SCHEDULE OF RELEASE - 6 MAINSTEM MISSOURI BASIN DAMS
Updated Daily
NOAA Hydrologic - Water Level at Gavins Point Dam, near Ft. Calhoun and Cooper Nuclear Plants
(The following link takes a bit to load all data)
http://water.weather.gov/ahps2/river.php?wfo=oax&wfoid=18705&riverid=203276&view=1%2C1%2C1%2C1%2C1%2C1%2C1%2C1&toggles=10%2C7%2C8%2C2%2C9%2C15%2C6&pt[]=141614&pt[]=144183&pt[]=142396&pt[]=143355&allpoints=143990%2C145585%2C145025%2C145026%2C144876%2C145027%2C143234%2C143184%2C145519%2C145640%2C144217%2C142150%2C142780%2C142853%2C145202%2C141586%2C144582%2C143543%2C144796%2C144098%2C144240%2C141320%2C141614%2C142968%2C144183%2C142574%2C143478%2C142193%2C142760%2C142003%2C142610%2C142396%2C144496%2C147345%2C141899%2C143355%2C142050%2C141570%2C144165%2C143476%2C141703%2C142023%2C144123%2C141863%2C143539%2C143436%2C141917%2C143009%2C142688%2C142640%2C143925%2C143734%2C142729%2C141978%2C143579%2C143348%2C142822&data[]=all&submit=Make+my+River+Page%21#bron1
BLAIR, NEBRASKA NEAR FT. CALHOUN NUCLEAR POWER PLANT
BROWNVILLE, NE - NEAR COOPER NUCLEAR PLANT
RESERVOIR CONTROL CENTER REPORTS
The following is the latest Reservoir Readings on the Upper Missouri River. This report is updated daily. Click on the picture for today's readings in reference to Gavins Point Dam, Ft. Randall Dam in SD, Big Bend Dam in SD, Oahe Dam in SD, Garrison Dam in ND and Fort Peck in Mt.
Link to daily report:
http://www.nwd-mr.usace.army.mil/rcc/reports/showrep.cgi?3MRDTAP7Link to daily report:
The Cave's Archive: NW DIVISION OF THE US ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS RESERVOIR CONTROL CENTER DAILY REPORT
Link: THE CAVE'S OVERFLOW - Archive of the Cave's Daily Flood of 2011 Updates
