During our area’s tremendous flooding, there is more to focus on than cleanup and recovery. There are also lessons to be learned about what worked, what did not, and what should be altered.
One of the things that needs to change is for more people to pay closer attention to what’s going on in their corner of the world.
Rock Rapids, Iowa—what happened here was unprecedented. In known history, no flood has been as severe as what occurred here in the last week of June.
“It was simply unbelievable. It flooded ten years earlier, but it didn’t cause as much damage as this time, destroying concrete and vehicles,” said Arden Kopischke.
Kopischke is the emergency manager for Lyon County, Iowa.
When it comes to historic floods, 2014 is the most commonly mentioned year. But not anymore. Not after this. “It’s just so hard to imagine the force of that water and the damage that it can do,” according to Kopischke.
The water here has receded. The flood scent is gone.
However, only the skeletons of structures that were destroyed by the flood remain. Homes are red-tagged, which means they can no longer be lived in. Streets get washed out or washed away.
People’s things are still being removed and placed on the curb, destined for the landfill. “It’s a new line that was drawn in the sand,” Kopischke explained.
Knowledge is power in most situations, including flash floods.
Knowing where it rained, when it rained, and how much it rained are all useful pieces of information, but they aren’t always easy to obtain.
One way the National Weather Service monitors river levels in our area is through cooperation with private residents, who watch how much rain falls in their area. The difficulty in northwest Iowa is that there aren’t enough individuals participating in that program, so the Weather Service doesn’t have as much information as it could when it comes to flooding scenarios like the one we’ve seen recently.
“Radar can provide us some estimate on how much rain has fallen, but there’s nothing better than an actual human-observed rainfall amount,” Andrew Kalin, of NASA, said.
Kalin, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Sioux Falls, is a vital member of the cooperation program. It’s called CoCoRaHS, or the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network.
Following the northwest Iowa flooding and the severity with which Rock Rapids and other cities were devastated, Kalin checked his map and discovered a lot of white space.
“The more dense of a network we have for rainfall reports, the better the river forecasts come out,” says Kalin.
These river projections are crucial for county emergency managers such as Arden Kopischke.
“If it rains one inch, your river may climb to this level. “If it rains two inches, it could reach this amount,” Kopischke explained.
Accuracy is critical for getting individuals out of harm’s way as quickly as feasible. According to Kalin, accuracy requires increased participation.
“The more dots we can put on this map, the better,” he remarked dakotanewsnow stated.
CoCoRaHS team members register through the National Weather Service. After online instruction, they receive a high-capacity 4″ rain gauge. Then they record their rainfall totals online or with an app.