The California Department of Water Resources<\/a> and the Alameda County Fire Department hosted a fascinating seminar on Flood Fight Methods this past weekend. We learned that there are 5,000 miles of levees in the state. Richard, our speaker from DWR, had a team that worked with 1500 miles of them. Both Richard and David, our hands-on sandbagging guide, have been involved with several notable floods since the 1980s. Their experience made it a colorful and informative time. Richard noted that they approach floods like CPR: good to know and important information, but something you don’t want to use.<\/p>\n

Richard noted that in his experience, the CA rainy season used to be longer but has shortened and intensified lately. This year we’re at 115% of normal. That’s good; we hope it keeps up at this pace.<\/p>\n

As part of the morning presentation we watched an 18 minute video that gave us a good overview of their work, and how we would assemble a sandbag wall or protection if needed.<\/p>\n