I had to shake my head, when I read this article this morning. I feel sorry for the people who got flooded out. However, I can’t see how railroad builders, 100+ years ago, could have forseen this flood situation. Two things of note: 1) If it weren’t for this rail line, there would have been no town. 2) I lived in Rapid City during the 1972 flood that killed more than 200 people. That flood was more one of “Biblical proportions.” If the track/house situation didn’t flood them out in 1972, it means the houses were built after 1972.
Article:
08/24/2007
Some Blame Railroad Embankment For Flood
A Hermosa property owner says the flood that struck part of the town a week ago was worse than it should have been because of the design of a railroad embankment that was ruptured by the waters of Battle Creek.
Gary Hunsaker says the embankment acted as a dam until so much water built up behind it that it burst all at once.
Hunsaker says that wouldn’t have happened if the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad had provided some kind of drainage along its tracks.
DM&E President Kevin Schieffer says so much rain fell in such a short time that the flood would have been nearly impossible to avoid.
He characterized the storm as one of “Biblical proportions.”
Schieffer says there are no plans to redesign the embankment that’s been in place for at least a century.
( from the KELOland TV website/ by Associated Press )
With the kind of rain totals Rapid City received back then it would have made little or no difference as the rain washed away virtually everything and railroad embankments made very little difference in that kind of conflagration.
And that’s why they rupture or wash out easily when water piles up on one side of them for some reason – usually a clogged drainage pipe.
In this instance, it looks to be that the fill had no drainage at all, and while historically it appears that water never rose to the level to break the embankment, it did this time. Yes, that could cause unprecedented flooding on the other side.
And yes, railroads routinely interfere with historical patterns of drainage – the Earth actually was here before the railroads.
And yes, 100 years is a blink of an eyelash in geological terms.
Murphy, I don’t see that anyone blamed the engineers 100 years ago for failure to foresee the problem. You’re anxious to accuse someone of placing a blame. What they seem to be saying is that the embankment backed up the waters, then when it broke, made the flooding worse.
Well, that’s probably true. What are they supposed to say?
Michael: Here’s the part that gets me- “A Hermosa property owner says the flood that struck part of the town a week ago was worse than it should have been”
Well, I guess I would rather have seen it to make a judgment call one way or another. A “dam” breaking – whether a real or accidental dam – would release more water all at once than might otherwise be coming down the gully. I don’t think the gentleman is trying to play God, I think he may just be saying that a lot more water hit him all at once because the railroad grade had created an inadvertent reservoir of water that released all at once when the embankment gave way. I guess that is common sense to me.
Another factor to consider is the development which has occurred upstream since the RR was built. When you pave streets and parking lots, when you build houses and shopping centers and all of the peripheral add-ons the collection and speed of run-off from storms is substantially increased. What may have been very adequate to allow the passage of run-off 100 years ago (or 10 years ago) may be inadequate now. Too many unanswered questions here to make a conclusion.
Michael — I “hear” from this “gentleman” that he doesn’t want to have to pony up for his flood loss from his own pocket. What you want to bet he doesn’t have any sort of water damage insurance. Let Cedar-American pay for it for him - and employ several law offices as well.
People who endure hardships inevitably believe they are suffering ~worse than they should have ~, it gives them the chance to externalize their suffering.
Not having any first hand knowledge of the area in question, let me speculate, the recent rains might have had a more severe affect than the biblical 1972 rains as a consequence of dramatic changes in land use over the time span?
If Walmart and their ilk have busily been turning local farmer’s fields into asphalt parking lots over those 30+ years, then much rain that previously soaked in, is now run-off.
It would be interesting to see how much the area has been built up over the time span in question, and to see if the local authorities have granted waivers for requirements that specify retention basins be built as part of the storm water management plans related to the development . [2c]
Careful, the rail industry itself has been a long-term, serial complainer about a wide variety of real and perceived injustices.
My “understanding” is that a railroad embankment trapped water, and it had not been engineered to let the water pass, i.e. a culvert installed. Two things are at play here: 1) the water backed up because of an impediment to a downhill flow created by the railroad, and 2) the railroad structure that caused the backup then failed and a sudden wall of water was created that did damage that would not have otherwise occured.
The resolution goes to the issue of “foreseeability.” Should the fellow “downstream” be liable for the damages he suffered because of the structure failure or the fact that the railroad did not install a culvert and created a danger by its failure to do so?
Who was in a better position to evaluate the danger? Well, the danger itself was created by the railroad, on railroad property.
Is there something the flooded gentleman should have known about low spots on railroad property, water flow, and railroad embankments that the railroad could not have known?
And, who was in a position to prevent the structure failure and the conditions that caused it?
Once more, too many unknowns to reach a ‘rational’ conclusion. If specific facts come forward, and not statements by attorneys please, we may then be able to analyze the cause and effect.
Let me add some thoughts here, to explain at least how I am looking at this situation. Hermosa is about a dozen miles south of where I grew up in Rapid City. It’s a small, West River(S.D.) town, that is past it’s heyday. The flood of 1972 was the worst ever recorded in the area. 238 (?) people died in it, including a couple kids I went to school with, and some people I barely knew. Before the flood, I had a Sunday Denver Post paper route. After the flood, that neighborhood was just plain gone. The flood also hit Keystone, near Mt. Rushmore pretty hard. Battle Creek runs through Keystone, then 20 or so miles east, out of the hills, and through Hermosa, which is in relatively flat, treeless countryside.
If, the 1972 flood, which was considered a “100 year flood” had washed out the tracks then, surely the railroad (CNW), would have put in culverts back then. If the 1972 flood did not wash it out then, this current flooding must really have been of “biblical proportions”. I understand the flooded homeowner’s frustration. I do, however, fail to see how a railroad, 100 years, and 4 owners ago, was supposed to forsee this. It sounds like a pretty good case of “an act of God” caused the problem.
I didn’t read the article as saying Mr. Homeowner was looking for payment from DM&E. I read it more as a frustrated flood victim venting at someone/anyone. Of note: no Walmarts in Hermosa, and flood insurance is quite rare.
No argument here. I was just trying to fill in possible explanation as to why this recent rainfall had more severe consequences than the (thought to be) heavier flooding witnessed back in 1972.
If the more recent ponding that occurred adjacent to the rail line happens to be run-off from a new, nearby development, then perhaps the blame should be spread around?
Especially if the local authority was lax in requiring adequate drainage improvements as part of the new construction.
Well, a few years ago I hit an icy patch on a road I have driven for over 40 years. Just was never a spot that had ice unless the whole road was icy, but never just a patch there. I was driving home – bare, dry road all the way – hit that icy patch and took out a mailbox.
Who should the owner of the mailbox look to for payment?
He doesn’t know what I was thinking or what my experience was or why I thought I might not be responsible – all he could see was his crumpled mailbox and I owned the instrumentality of its destruction.
I paid.
That’s what I had insurance for – for damage caused to others. It was between me and my insurance carrier as to discussions about “Acts of God.”
An Act of God might make water run uphill, but it’s pure physics when it runs downhill and from what I could tell by the flooded gentleman’s complaint, after the railroad grade first impounded the water artificially, and then the railroad grade crumbled because of lack of drainage, the water had run downhill and he was at the bottom of the hill.