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Flood damage likely to be worse than '06
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July 4, 2012 |
For a little over three weeks, Boundary County
Emergency Management Incident Commander Bob
Graham has been out leading the response to the
Flood of 2012, quite a bit longer, he said than
was necessary in our last flood year six years
ago.
That increased duration, he fears, is causing
considerably more damage than what was
experienced in 2006, when damages neared
$2-million, mostly from crop loss and dike
damage.
"We had problems in '06," he said, "and the
river was above flood stage for a considerably
shorter time before it dropped back down. This
year, the Corps keeps saying the water's going
to go down soon, but so far we haven't seen
that, and the longer the river is high, the
worse it gets."
As a result, both the City of Bonners Ferry and
Boundary County Commissioners declared disasters
early on, and on Tuesday, Idaho Governor Butch
Otter verbally declared a state disaster for
Boundary County.
The most visible location hit by rising water,
as it is in most flood years, are the city dikes
behind the Kootenai River Inn, where several
volunteers joined experts in shoring up 500-feet
of levy with with 300 "supersack" sandbags and
scores of regular sandbags.
"The forecasts say the water will be going down
next week, but they've been saying that for
almost a month now," Graham said.
Another area hard hit is in District 4 between
Copeland and Porthill, where the dike was
overtopped and fields were flooded from Canyon
Creek to Smith Creek and fro the river to the
Westside Road.
Graham has been joined by two Army Corps
response teams, who are working hand-in-hand
with the county and the state to mitigate
damage.
Work is expected to get underway on Thursday to
armor dikes on the south end of the district,
where damage is the worst.
"We're seeing a lot of dike damage," Graham
said. "Because the water is staying high so
long, we're seeing a lot of sloughing, and if it
keeps up, we could start seeing some breaching.
In quite a few places there's not much left to
hold back the water."
Graham said crop loss from this flood is likely
to dwarf what was experienced in 2006, again
because of the length of time the river's been
held above flood stage.
"We're seeing surface water from river seepage
in almost all the districts," he said. "In 2006,
the river elevation went to 66.5 feet, which is
2 1/2 feet above flood stage and where we're at
right now, but in '06 the river dropped back
below flood stage in a little over a week. It's
been over three weeks this time, and despite the
forecasts, I'm not too sure it's going to be
dropping anytime soon."
Seepage has encroached into the city as well,
with a considerable amount of water flooding
below-ground storage areas at General Feed and
Grain, destroying a considerable quantity of
oats and preventing the mill from using many of
their augers.
Graham, one Corps response team and several city
officials spent part of Monday assessing that
damage.
"2006 was pretty bad as far as damages went,"
Graham said. "This year will be worse." |
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