More upstream storage may offer some breathing room along the Missouri
January 10, 2012

While nobody's ready to get too confident yet, the US Army Corps of Engineers is reporting that the storage capacity of the lakes and reservoirs in the upstream Missouri River basin should be about 2% greater than normal levels when the runoff season begins in March. The winter season has been relatively dry so far, which may help reduce the likelihood of spring flooding this year. Last year's devastating floods left terrible scars in western Iowa, where contractors are racing to repair damaged levees. The cover illustration on the updated USACE operating plan for the Missouri River gives a really good overview of just how large a network of rivers feeds into the Missouri, which illustrates in turn just how significant the snowfall in Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado is to river conditions in Iowa and Nebraska. We are actively assisting communities working to improve their river-flood defenses right now, with rush orders for flood gates and pumps available for those seeking to beat the arrival of spring. Contact us if you need emergency shipments on pumps, gates, or other flood-control products. Our suppliers are capable of meeting deadlines faster than anyone else in the industry.


The past isn't that long ago
January 9, 2012

The Sioux City Journal publishes a regular column with stories from the archives, and in yesterday's edition shared an 1887 story about the then-brand-new waterworks serving the city. It's widely lost to the public's imagination, but municipal drinking water systems in the United States are mainly a product of the post-Civil War era and are thus not really all that old from the long viewpoint of human history. (In other words, we're still relatively new at this, at least when compared to lots of other things we've been doing much longer.) On the other side of that coin, however, is the knowledge that the components making up those systems are aging all the time, and many are in urgent need of repair or replacement. There are many systems with original components still in place delivering water today. They've far outlived their reasonable service lives and need to be upgraded in order to ensure the continued supply of safe fresh water that we take for granted.


Rush to fix Missouri River levees gets underway
December 29, 2011

The US Army Corps of Engineers is getting more money than previously expected to accelerate the repair of levees in southwest Iowa along the Missouri River. This is good news for the thousands of households and dozens of communities that were hit by the floods of 2011 -- and that could be threatened by a new round of flooding in the spring of2012. The Corps acknowledges that it can't get all of the repairs done by next spring, but the extraordinarily mild weather we're having should help.

Most people haven't been there in person to see the damage left behind by the flooding, so we offer you this video taken in early November right around the Iowa/Missouri border, where some of the damage was greatest. It's difficult to grasp the full extent of the damage from this video taken from Interstate 29, but it's educational nonetheless. Jump ahead to the 2:36 mark to see Hamburg, Iowa:



We are working right now to assist communities in the Missouri River valley with flood-protection equipment and systems, including portable pumps and flood gates. Please contact us if you need our assistance.


Merry Christmas
December 26, 2011

We wish a very Merry Christmas to all of our friends, colleagues, clients, and suppliers. We will be closed on Monday in honor of Christmas, and re-opening on Tuesday morning. If you have an emergency, you may always reach us via our emergency paging service.

Other water news from December 2011
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