Floods are among the most common and devastating disasters that can befall people anywhere around the world. The rule of thumb is that anywhere it can rain, it can flood, and your flood risks are geometrically worse in areas of high precipitation, near any body of water concourse, or in a low-lying area.
Even minor flooding can ruin your home and possessions, and severe flooding can devastate entire regions, often killing dozens or hundreds of people.
Floods seem like one of those things that you just have to endure or escape from, but with the right approach and enough time to react that isn’t necessarily true.
It’s always possible to sandbag properties to reduce flood damage by redirecting water or holding it at bay. But filling sandbags is highly laborious and often cannot be done in time.
Luckily, there are functional alternatives to traditional sandbags. Some of them use the floodwater itself to provide that protection. I’ll tell you about some good sandbag alternatives below in the rest of this article…
Aqua Dams
Aqua dams, alternatively cold hydro dams or water dams, are basically humongous, flexible tubular, or pad-shaped containers that use the weight of water to hold back even bigger quantities of water. Basically, they are water-inflated containers that look like a giant water pack or ice pack once they are full.
Made by various manufacturers, a large and properly sited aqua dam can hold back a truly gargantuan amount of water, as much as 6 feet or a little more. It is one the very best options for protecting flood-vulnerable waterways or properties, and they are reasonably easy to move into place with a team of men or a vehicle.
However, they take a long time to fill in order to render maximum protection, and specialized pumping rigs are needed to fill them from nearby water sources or the flood water itself.
Concrete / Cement Bags
One of the most interesting, and divisive, improvised methods for flood defense on our list here is concrete or cement bags. When you think about it, they work kind of like sandbags, right?
I mean they’re flexible, they can hold back water and the fill even reacts with water. What could be better?
Properly placed, concrete or cement bags will definitely hold back water, and as the water activates the mix inside it’s going to get even stronger!
Yes, this is undoubtedly true, but the problem comes when it’s time to clean up: you’re going to have an impossibly heavy and durable concrete wall to deal with! Or, at best, a mass of concrete right in front of your door, garage or anywhere else you happen to place it.
I don’t much look forward to the notion of jackhammering or sledgehammering that concrete into chunks and then carting it away, but I suppose if the alternative is losing my home and everything in it, or using concrete…
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