SOUTH SIOUX CITY, Neb. — Out at Covington Links golf course, the Flood of '11 has given a whole new meaning to the words “water hazard.”
Thirteen of the course's cottonwood tree-lined 18 holes are completely or partially covered with the greenish-brown waters of the adjacent Missouri River.
The slowly rising flows have also been the mother of invention for new uses for duct tape and a local Styrofoam product normally used for building foundations.
But a 7,000-foot-long, temporary earthen levee, built almost a month ago by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to protect this city of nearly 13,400, is doing its job so far — even with newer, higher flows that arrived on Friday.
It has prevented floodwaters from re-entering a long-dry oxbow lake area and threatening $60 million worth of shopping centers, businesses, a college center and other suburban development that sprung up since the last epic flood in 1952.
“I think it's going to hold,” said golf course owner Marty Johnson of South Sioux City's levee, as he sat in the clubhouse. “But will it hold for three months?”
That's the question up and down the Missouri River as this year's flood nears the one-month mark.
Alarms first went up here during the Memorial Day weekend, when the corps announced that because of heavy rains and spring snowmelt upstream it was upping the flow in the river to 150,000 cubic feet per second, about five times normal.
Residents near the river quickly moved out valuables and surrounded their homes and businesses with sandbags and sheets of plastic.
The city and Dakota County authorized emergency funds to build two levees, and within a week, they were done.
Except for a few homes in low areas just along the river, the golf course and a ballfield complex, South Sioux City has remained dry as floodwaters slowly rose.
This week, in response to heavy rains upriver, the corps ratcheted up flows to 160,000 cfs from Gavins Point Dam, the last of a series of flood-control structures on the Missouri.
But the river had risen only a few inches by Friday, and there was a sense here that the levees will have room to spare.
There have been no “sand boils” — water seeping up behind levees — in the South Sioux City area. And except for few holes that meandering deer have punched in the plastic sheets lining the dikes, there have been no problems.
“The levee is doing what it's intended to do — keep the water out,” said Dakota County Emergency Management Director Pat Foust. “I expect the water to come up another day, but we're still not near the top of the levee. About all we can do now is wait and see.”
Floodwaters are expected to persist at least another two months, which raises that question about whether levees built for swift storm events can sustain weeks of high water.
“Can it fail?” Foust asked. “I guess anything can. Do I expect it to? No.”
Which brings us to duct tape and Styrofoam.
The Nebraska National Guard, which was mobilized to provide 24-hour surveillance of the earthen levee, has been using duct tape covered by sandbags to repair holes in the plastic-lined dikes caused by sharp deer hooves.
Sgt. 1st Class Mark Zimmerman of Leigh, Neb., who is directing the 12 Guard soldiers monitoring the dikes, said the levee is holding up well. Water is now hitting about two-thirds of its 7,000-foot length and has not reached a second, backup levee.
That second levee was built using interlocking Styrofoam forms, filled with concrete, that are manufactured by a local company, LiteForm Technologies.
The unique dike was spawned during a middle-of-the-night brainstorming session by the president of the company, Pat Boeshart, because he needed to come up with something. His plant sits at the lowest point of the business area on the west side of South Sioux City.
The Styrofoam levee is getting its first test against water at Covington Links, where course superintendent Gerry Uhing has built 600 feet of temporary levee in the past couple of days to protect three golf holes on the wet side of the corps' earthen levee.
Uhing donned chest waders to slosh into the grimy waters with the Styrofoam forms, which were weighted down and then filled with concrete. Then pumps cleared water behind the new dike in hopes of preventing the expense of eventually reseeding and restoring those three holes.
“This is like the front line,” Uhing said. “We're trying to save as much as we can.”
Downtown, rush-hour traffic flowed like normal across the U.S. 77 bridge leading into Sioux City, Iowa. Just downstream, near the Marina Inn, a massive, white tentlike structure rose to host a wedding this weekend for 350 guests. Just 40 yards away, sandbags held back the river.
“It just goes to show you, love has no bounds,” said Foust, the emergency manager. “Come hell or high water, that wedding is going to happen.”
Foust and others said that residents of the Sioux City-South South City area have come together to prevent widespread damage from this year's flood — so far. But all on Friday said the battle is far from over.
“We're dealing with nature, we're dealing with water,” he said. “We'll continue to keep our guard up.”
Contact the writer:
402-473-9584, paul.hammel@owh.com
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