This morning I had the opportunity to go out into the field and do a site reconnaissance with my project manager. And there was much rejoicing! Huzzah!! Considering that these opportunities are few and far between, I was walking on water. And the weather - mid 70s, strong breeze, bright sunny skies. Hoo boy. It was going to be difficult to get back to work!
So we've been hired by a builder who is proposing to build two houses on the banks of the Arkansas River. However, since they will be building in the floodplain, FEMA requires that the structures being built cannot raise the water elevations during a 1% flood one iota.
That's where we come in. We take the current model that has been developed for the Arkansas River and add in the structures which could potentially block some of the flow. We run the model and it computes new water elevations based on the new data. Then we compare it to the results without the structures in place. If the blocked areas do not affect the water elevations, our client is good to go. However, if the structures end up raising water elevations, then the client will have to either forgo the project or somehow make up for the blocked area by excavating an equal amount of volume (called "cut" in engineering terms.)
According to the plans we have, one of the houses will be less than 20 feet from the river. I don't know about you, but there's NO WAY IN HELL that I would live so close to such a large river. The potential for flooding is just too great. And based on current river levels, the ground floor elevation of the house is only a mere 10 feet above the river right now. Sure the view is great, but the potential to lose everything you own is something that must be considered. I'm sure these will be the same people who then come bitching to FEMA when their house floods and they think FEMA should've done something to protect them.
I'm sorry but if you build your house on the banks of a river, you are entirely responsible if the river floods due to natural causes.
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