Fargo Opts For Bigger Bag To Help Stop Floodwaters
FARGO, N.D. (AP) -- City and county officials are counting on Everett "Buzz" Waid's enormous sandbag system to help protect large stretches of Fargo and outlying areas from a third straight major Red River flood.
Now Waid's thinking of shrinking his invention.
"I'm working on a smaller machine that can get into back yards," said Waid, a 59-year-old Florida native who came up with the idea for TrapBags after living through hurricanes. "I plan to spend some time in the neighborhoods with the sandbag crews to see where they have to go and what they have to do."
Waid's device allows workers operating front-end loaders, excavators or other heavy equipment to quickly fill pentagon-shaped 4- or 6-foot woven polypropylene bags. The bags typically come in 100-foot-long sections hung on a guide rail. For now, the unit is only practical on sidewalks, streets and ground that's easily accessible.
Waid said the trip to Fargo inspired him to help people who have to toss sandbags to save their houses.
"I think it's a need," he said. "We need to see if we can find some technology to get the material in there without making this disastrous mess with all these Bobcats and having to have this massive armada of people. Sooner or later you're going to run out of volunteers."
The city of 105,000 people, which has needed massive volunteer sandbagging efforts to help hold off major floods in the last two years, became interested in the TrapBags when Waid and other company officials participated in a flood expo in February. Waid said he usually doesn't receive inquiries before a potential disaster.
"People all across the country are reactive instead of proactive. Fargo is proactive," Waid said.
The record flood of 2009 forced thousands to evacuate, inundated about 100 homes and caused an estimated $100 million in damage. The river crested at 40.84 feet, or nearly 21 feet above flood stage. The river topped out last year at 36.99 feet, the sixth-highest crest on record.
This is the first time the TrapBags will be used in a large-scale flood operation. Fargo plans to install at least six miles of the big bags, each of which is stamped with the name of an area flood-recovery fund called "Spirit of Fargo." The county plans to experiment with one mile.
"If it works, we will put it in our tool kit for future years," said Darrell Vanyo, Cass County commissioner.
Cost of the protection in Fargo is about $960,000. Daniel Schnaars Sr., president of the company that makes the containers, claims that TrapBags use half the material as sandbag dikes and can be spread out as compost -- unlike contaminated sandbags -- when the flood is over. It adds up to a cheaper and less labor-intensive product, he said.
"There's less expense involved in bringing the material to it, and less expense involved in bringing it away later," Schnaars said.
It also saves money on doctor visits, Schnaars said.
"When you're lugging two million sandbags, you have five million opportunities for an injury," he said.
Fargo is using two other floodwall systems from previous floods: Hesco barriers, which are sand containers, and the AquaFence, a lightweight but durable plywood wall held in place by poles.
Waid's invention might have been 50 years in the making. When he was 9 years old, his hometown of Fort Myers Beach, Fla., and the house he grew up in was deluged by Hurricane Donna. His family had no running water and went without electricity for a month.
"You really learn when you lose everything," Waid said.
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