Arkansas homeowner doesn't give up

[Gale Hawkins]

Keep in mind 100 year events can come in back to back years even.

I too hopes the level holds but it did not look too healthy but based on the volume of the pump it was not being forced to pump a lot of water to keep up.

I grew up on the edge of a swap and our out buildings would flood. When we bought down the road we bought on the hill side and the house is 90 foot higher than my home place. :thumbsup:

 

[aczlan]

Looking at the youtube link under "More Information" turned up these videos:
1. YouTube - Update on The Moat White River Flood DeValls Bluff Ar.
2. YouTube - High Water + The Moat. DeVallsBluff Ar.
Looks like his house stayed dry.

Aaron Z

 

[LoveTheSmellofDiesel]

Woohoo! :thumbsup:

 

[Gale Hawkins]

It is good to know it worked.:thumbsup:

 

[dave1949]

But this is a once in an 80 - 100 year event. No one, not even his grand pappy when he was a boy ever thought the water would get that high.

JB

As Gale said, 100 year events aren't always 100 years apart. I'm glad he saved his house. I just think it can't be all that difficult or expensive to build a home that is designed for the location - a flood plain. Perhaps a sacrificial first floor with concrete walls and all mechanical/electrical equipment installed above that. He needs a place to park his boat anyways.

It cannot be more expensive than building a standard home and then paying high insurance costs and repair costs and whatever he has spent and will spend on his moat and restoring his yard.

In the video, it looks like there is an entire neighborhood flooded by 6'-8' of water. I wonder how often they get 3'-4' of flood water which would cause almost as much damage as 6' by the way it looks.

Easy to be an armchair critic, but just sayin'.
Dave.

 

[North Country]

Is this a local politician? Some extraordinary local citizen who's garnered unbelievable community support? A local contractor who's used his own equipment to build this dirt monument, then shunted it off to points dry, and then his employees are working and recording the effort?

Why not just an average guy? It doesn't have to be anyone special (aside from access to the excavator, which he had days in advance.)

 

[dusty3030]

I read all the comments.
1. Where he is located is on the White River and is where Interstate 40 went under for over a week. If the fed's weren't smart enough to build one of the buisiest interstates in the country high enough then these folks couldn't be expected to build their houses high enough either. The White go so high so many roads went under it almost made it impossible to travel the state east to west or vice versa.

2. I evacuated my family and my animals 3 weeks ago from my house. I've been pumping to keep water out of the house, I'm on a crawl space or I would have been flooded out. The water still surrounds my property, I stayed to fight it and have been living on my own island. I park out by the highway and use a 4 wheeler to go to negotiate around to get to my house.

3. Our problem this year was the combination of the Mississippi and the unheard of rain hitting us at the same time. All of our rivers and drainages filled up with rain water and the massive water coming down the Ohio River that flooded the lower Mississippi gave all the rain that fell nowhere to go. If just the river would have flooded we would have been OK, if just the rain had come and the river been normal we would have been fine. The combination of both made this a severe situation. The drainages for my area in Crittenden county are just now coming down so the water can fall out. The Mississippi didn't flood us, but the high river prevented us from being able to get all the rain water that fell drained out. The Huxtable is all that keeps 1/4 of my state from being a swamp. Huxtable Pumping Plant Saves Northeast Arkansas From Flood Damage|Memphis News, Memphis Breaking News, Memphis Weather, Severe Weather Coverage, Local News, Local Weather, Germantown News, Cordova News, Bartlett News, Collierville News, Tennessee New

4. As far as permits, I doubt Prarie county much cares. You can do what you want on your own land.

5. As far as neighbors, that is what we do down here. As soon as my freinds found out we were flooding they offered to move everything out of our house for us, all of them offered us a place to stay. I live out in a rural area, not incorporated. During this ordeal all of us in this area have been checking on each other and helping each other out moving livestock, making sure some of the older people can get out and get groceries, etc. You don't have to ask for help around here, it will find you.

 

[jmanatee2]

I am happy he saved his home. It is very sad what is happening with all this flooding. I am not sure how insurance will handle this flooding because some of it is caused by the government blowing up levees.

If I lived there, I think I would fight just the same. We made a different choice, we use to live in FL we have had 4 hurricanes go over us none serious but all were enough to make us want to move.

We made a decision to not to live where there are serious threats of hurricanes, flooding and/or earthquakes.

 

[dusty3030]

What they blew at Birds Point was opening up a designated floodway. It isn't that big an area. They blew a designated spot to open it up then blew two more spots on the south end of it to let the water back out. There is a secondary levee system west of the main levee that held in what they opened up. It worked as designed.

What has been flooding in Arkansas has been areas that have never flooded like this since all the flood control has been in place. April gave us two to three times the normal rain for the month in just a couple of weeks. 18" plus of rain in two weeks time fell over a large area. It was crazy. Storms would develop and string out from east to west and kept dumping rain over the same areas.

 

[sixdogs]

I read all the comments.
1. Where he is located is on the White River and is.... .

....

....

5. As far as neighbors, that is what we do down here. As soon as my freinds found out we were flooding they offered to move everything out of our house for us, all of them offered us a place to stay. I live out in a rural area, not incorporated. During this ordeal all of us in this area have been checking on each other and helping each other out moving livestock, making sure some of the older people can get out and get groceries, etc. You don't have to ask for help around here, it will find you.

:thumbsup:

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Mississippi River flooding: Residents build homemade dams to saves houses | Mail Online

 

[crazyal]

The government, since they are going to pay anyway, should offer this service for anyone with flood insurance. Maybe pay contractors to build these and provide a pump to push the water out and fuel to run it. The cost to rebuild one house will offset the cost to save 5 or more so even if it didn't work every time if you saved half it would still be a savings.

 

[Whitnel]

I noticed in the first video he had a sandbag wall around his house. Later in the video it was gone and the bags were on the outer wall. That was a lot of sand bags to move.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

It looked like the external plastic liner was saving the day in places where there was water flowing and not just back water.

It worked because these people had a week or two to prep. It was a lot of work but now life is back to normal where others will be upto a year I expect yet not quite the same as before.

I guess since this flood was almost equal to 1927/1937 floods if in the future one built a couple feet higher they would be fine for next time.

 

[orezok]

What bothers me is the fools who are racing around in their boats. Don't they have any idea what additional damage their wakes might be causing. If your "dam" is marginal in height, it might only take one significant wake to breach it.

 

[reelbig]

OMG :newhere:

 

[Danno1]

What bothers me is the fools who are racing around in their boats. Don't they have any idea what additional damage their wakes might be causing. If your "dam" is marginal in height, it might only take one significant wake to breach it.

Ya, I was gonna make some comment a few days ago about a no wake zone sign on the dam. But I forgot...............


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