Troubled Waters III

First, to put you in the mood, check out this Wondermark comic by David Malki!
#491; In which Wendy is prepared
If I ever meet Malki!, I'll ask him if the bang* was inspired by the comma in James Wesley, Rawles' name, or an independent discovery.

Anyway.

The Army Corps of Engineers has posted their estimated flood inundation maps for the Kent/Auburn, WA area in case of the anticipated, dreaded, Green River flood. 

There are four maps here, for an estimated 13,900 cubic feet per second of flow; 17,600, cps; 19,500 cps; and for 25,000 cubic feet per second.  (The "normal" high flow rate for the Green River is about 12,000 cps.)(Each map can be downloaded in two formats, one for 11x17 printout; the other, full size(46" x 36") map, is formatted for a plotter.  Just the excuse I've been waiting for to buy one!)

I feel it important to quote some of the caveats from the Corps of Engineers' website regarding these maps:

• These maps are only guidelines and do not consider the inherent uncertainties associated with all the unknown variables that may happen during an actual flood event. In short, these are not the only scenarios possible, but represent degrees of response needed.
• The maps are provided by the Corps in an effort to provide as much knowledge for the public to plan and prepare for the increased risk due to the decreased operational capacity of the Howard Hanson Dam.
• The maps are based on computer modeling and may vary from actual events.
• The flows shown in these scenarios are not flows that will be released.  The flows represent a range of flow conditions that were evaluated for planning purposes to understand the consequences of types of operations at the dam, which could be necessary due to reduced operational capacity. There is no probability associated with these flows.
• These maps are NOT evacuation maps, they are estimates of the level of inundation based on a range of scenarios.
• The maps do not take into consideration any recent work being done along the river in regards to levee fortification or private flood protection which will change the way in which flood waters spread across the land, and again may not accurately reflect inundation.

Emphasis was added by me.

In the meantime, these are new:

Apologies for the crappy cell phone pic.  This is a section of the sandbagging going on.  The large white objects are Ginormica's shopping bags; they call them "super sandbags", made of heavy plastic and hold about 10 or 20 bushels of sand.  They are lined up and then covered with heavy-grade visqueen.  Pass-throughs are left along the way, with two or more filled bags left to fill in the gap at need.  (Tried to get a close up off one of the bags, but it came out even worse...)

Meanwhile, they have been putting up Evacuation Route signs.  Now, the three of you who regularly read this drivel may recall that I discussed the issues with designating evacuation routes in advance:  People will get used to them, and then, come The Day, not be able to use what they were thinking of as the route, and then be lost.

So, now that the signs are up, they have all been covered (stand alones on sign posts) or turned around (on lamp posts, etc.) so that all that is visible is a blank square.  Considering that people who work, but do not live, in the area tend to know only one way into and out of the neighborhood, this should, hopefully, save some lives.

Of course, we all hope that these preparations are not needed, but even a liberal can see the point to getting ready, and even a fiscal conservative won't cavil at spending money that might turn out to have been unnecessary when so much is at stake.

***

*Printing trade name for an exclamation point. I can see the point, no pun intended: If you're setting type, "bang" is a lot quicker to say than "exclamation point."
By the way, the three asterisks appearing above these footnotes are called "slugs."   Or used to be, in the days of linotype and typecasting...