2017 brought record snow fall to the Northwest region of the United States and has been affectionately referred to as the year of ‘Snowmageddon’ where the Tahoe Basin received 238” of snow in January alone and the snow kept coming. The spring melt brought widespread flooding where governmental organizations and residential home owners alike needed to purchase flood barriers in California, Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, Washington, Utah, and Washington alike. It was an unprecedented season of snow, ice, and flooding. Skiing enthusiasts throughout the area still reflect on 2017 with a ‘100 yard stare’ and a perma-grin smeared across their face with one simple word to describe it…..WOW!!
Nevada has unique geography in that many of their lakes are ‘terminal lakes,’ which means they have no outlet. When the snow melts, the run-off water generally ends up in a terminal lake and is left to evaporation during the hot summers. This keeps lake levels from flooding the surrounding homes and communities. With the massive snowpack, Washoe County, Nevada had significant problems brewing and deployed several miles of HESCO flood barriers as well as water filled flood barriers known as the Tiger Dam flood protection system to protect their citizens. It was a good decision as the flood protection system did stop floodwater for an extended period of time before evaporation could bring multiple of their terminal lakes back down to acceptable levels.
HESCO flood barriers are commonly left in place for many years but in most cases, they are removed shortly after the flood threat subsides. Due to the slow rates of evaporation and seasonal snowpacks, the flood barriers deployed by Washoe County and The City of Reno Nevada were left in place for about 4.5 years until it was time to remove them. This brings on the question of ‘how do you remove the HESCO flood barrier?’