First floods of the season reach Des Moines
March 12, 2010

Upstream ice jams broke and caused flash floods to pass through Des Moines over the last day or two, and though the flash floods have passed, the rivers are going to be on the rise for a while to come as snowmelt from the river basins makes its way from the tributaries into the main rivers. The Polk County emergency manager has alerted local media that they are planning for flooding throughout the weekend and into next week, and the Corps of Engineers has increased the amount of outflow at the Saylorville Dam to reduce the chances that the dam will be overtopped in the next couple of weeks. The spring flood outlook from the National Weather Service offers a lot of sobering news for Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

Related products: Just today, we bid on a project using sluice gates to control floodwaters along a levee in Des Moines. Using stainless steel gates in a flood-control application has a number of advantages over conventional materials like cast iron. Since stainless steel gates travel within a UHMW-PE channel, there's no metal-to-metal contact between the gate's slide plate and the channel in which it travels; this does away with the need for gates to be exercised to keep them from freezing in place. Moreover, stainless steel gates gain their strength and durability from design rather than sheer bulk, which means they're easier to install and easier to actuate (that is, to raise and lower) than heavier cast iron gates. This makes them better for operation and installation alike.

March 2010
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last revised March 2010