Getting your tail feathers wet

[farmer]

Its flooding .
I have been pumping 8500 gallons of water per hour for 5 days :frown:
My property is right next to the river .

The levy and the river level is above my property and I was getting standing water in my front yard from saturation .

I felt like I was walking on a sponge .

I have the water level pumped down two feet below the surface of my front yard ..

So much for living in the desert where its dry as bone .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j31QLCELqYo
The Humboldt river doesn't drain into other rivers or the ocean .
It runs out into what is called the Humboldt sinks .

They are comparing this flood to the flood they had here in 1983
In 1983 the Nevada flooded area had more surface area of water then lake superior .

 

[DJBPenmaker]

Can't get the video, says not available. Hope you dry out soon!

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

[farmer]

Water

Can't get the video, says not available. Hope you dry out soon!

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

The video pretty much show miles and miles of swamp land.
I suspect I will be running the pumps for 5 or six months .....

 

[mark james]

The video worked for me.

Amazing footage from the drone.

Very sad for the flooded areas. I have had to rehab a housing unit that was flooded with 4' of salt water (Hurricane Ivan) - not fun, not easy, and not cheap.

Best Wishes are sent Mike.

 

[farmer]

Footage

The video worked for me.

Amazing footage from the drone.

Very sad for the flooded areas. I have had to rehab a housing unit that was flooded with 4' of salt water (Hurricane Ivan) - not fun, not easy, and not cheap.

Best Wishes are sent Mike.

Mark ..My property is in the middle of that mess ... Most of the time my Island is a desert oasis . I guess I should laugh , considering how insane that sounds right now .

That swamp in the video is over 290 miles long , and I am right in the middle of that swamp in that video just a little more up stream .

PS there is a river in that swamp , you just cant see it .

 

[Jim15]

Wish I could do something for you. You and your family will be in my prayers.

 

[farmer]

Flooded

Wish I could do something for you. You and your family will be in my prayers.

Thanks Jim

Right now, this second I am ok
To be honest there is little I can do except move , other then that I will have to keeps the pumps going and see what God has in store for me next .

A prayer might be the only thing that will save me anyway ...

Thank you ...

 

[tomtedesco]

Guess I never thought of Nevada having much water before. Video is eye opening. Hope you don't run out of gas for your pumps and stay dry, good luck.

 

[farmer]

Rough day

I am getting flooded ....
I am pumping 7500 GPH and have been for over thirty days .

the river is 11.5 ft past flood stage .
It was down about 18 inches but back up and plus ..

At about 7 am I here a loud crash and the lights flicker for a few minutes and went out ..
There was a storm or snow blizzard 50 MPH winds dropped tons of water.
I go outside and my power lines and power polls are everything except lay laying on there side.
A tree on the other side of the river blew down and took the power line with it and its in the raging river ..
And the lines are connected to my power polls and the river is trying to drag my power polls in the river.
My cars are parked under them , my house is under one of them .
I am 100% helpless , There isn't a thing I can do ..
I called the power company , they are saying we will get to you when we can They have power outages all over ..
I said how many of those people are getting flooded out ..??/
It was a waist of time those words I spoke ..

Inside I just wanted cry .

5 hours later I got the power on ...
the water level was to high to now .. I got the pumps on but the river being up and the pumps being off they were not going to keep up with the water saturating my property ..

It took a little doing , I bought another pump and borrowed one from a friend and then the water piping is almost as much as the pump .
The guy at the commercial plumbing store gave me a break and sold me all the pipe at his cost ....

I got all the pumps in and plumbed turned them on and it seems to be helping allot ..
Right now I figure I am pumping about 200 gallons a minute ...

Its been one of those days guys ..
You don't want to see my shop ...
I don't even wish to explain what happened , I will say my Honda Gold wing was destroyed ...
Its getting pretty bad ........

Kinda hard not to get emotional
.

 

[Curly]

Sorry to hear of your bad day. I feel your pain. I rented a house once that had a very wet basement (where my shop was) that at times had 45 gallons a minute flowing in. I had electric 2 sump pumps plus a gasoline powered pump as a backup during power failures. Until the landlord put a generator I stayed close to home in the winter. You should consider a gas powered pump or a generator to power the electric pumps if you expect the floods and bad weather to continue. 3" gas powered pumps with 15,000 GPH cost from $300 to $800 Canadian here. Your dollar would put them a third lower. Still need the suction and discharge hoses though.

 

[Skie_M]

How much lower is your property than the high water level?

Would it be feasible to raise your house and driveway and all essential buildings and outbuildings above that level to prevent future flood damage? (They did something similar as a requirement for rebuilding houses on the Jersey Shore after the big storm over there wrecked most of Long Island.... you had to raise your house like 4 - 8 feet, depending on the area, to get above the flood level so that you could insure your house again.)

I am hoping you had some kind of homeowner's insurance with flood damage coverage...



(edit) Also consider the headway for your pumps ... how much higher you are pushing the water reduces the actual gallons per minute of flow you can move... a 250 gallons per hour pump with 2 feet of headway (2 foot increase in height) would only push 180 gallons per hour up there... make it 4 feet of height and you drop down to about 120 gallons per hour. If you notice you are pushing water excessively high, lower the hoses so that the pumps don't have to work as hard and can move more water for you.

 

[Jim15]

Sorry to read this. I will keep you and your family in my prayers.

 

[leehljp]

My prayers are with you!

 

[Maverick KB]

Any chance at getting a dozer or even a Bobcat out there and pushing up a berm? Unless the water table is just too high and it would just come up from below...

Just a thought. Short of gathering a bunch of folks to fill sand bags and making a trip out there, it's all I could think of that might help.


Sent from my iPad using Penturners.org mobile app

 

[farmer]

water

How much lower is your property than the high water level?

Would it be feasible to raise your house and driveway and all essential buildings and outbuildings above that level to prevent future flood damage? (They did something similar as a requirement for rebuilding houses on the Jersey Shore after the big storm over there wrecked most of Long Island.... you had to raise your house like 4 - 8 feet, depending on the area, to get above the flood level so that you could insure your house again.)

I am hoping you had some kind of homeowner's insurance with flood damage coverage...



(edit) Also consider the headway for your pumps ... how much higher you are pushing the water reduces the actual gallons per minute of flow you can move... a 250 gallons per hour pump with 2 feet of headway (2 foot increase in height) would only push 180 gallons per hour up there... make it 4 feet of height and you drop down to about 120 gallons per hour. If you notice you are pushing water excessively high, lower the hoses so that the pumps don't have to work as hard and can move more water for you.

Yes ,, thank you ... you are correct .
I had a friend helping me ,, he owns American Drilling ,
He has been educating me on everything you said ..
I knew some of this because at one time I had forest fire water truck .
And had to set up a pump or pumps to fight fires 200 to 300 feet up a hill ..



I have 4 sump pumps ranging 1/3 hp to 3/4 hp
I am pumping the water 150 ft is the longest line .
Shortest is 60 feet .
One pump is pumping directly into a sewer drain .
The river is about 5 or 6 feet above the back side of the property .
The river snakes around me , I am on a Island in the middle of the desert.
On the other side where the river is 20 feet from my front yard the river is about a foot higher .

Pump lift .
3 pumps are lifting 10 feet one pump about 7 feet
With all the pumps on I figured with lift
I have a gas power pump , I need to rebuild or replace the carb .

The price of hose or pipe is expensive almost as much or more then some of the pumps .....

I cant raise the house cant get a permit ,,, I am not grand fathered in ...
I cant get any building permits on my property ..

The only thing I can do is bull doze all the building ( 5) bring in 100K worth of dirt rock , hire a engineer and just maybe the city will give me a building permit ..

Then I could build a nice house ,,, if I invest a half million that I don't have .only issue is The train tracks are about 250 yards from my property and the pictures would get shaken off the wall 30 times a day.
I have bad health ,,,, I cant do this myself , and I don't believe I have the time to do it any way .
I am looking for another place ..
More remote and not next to the river.

My place has issue , I have the largest trees in town , ( about a 150 trees ) the ice wind snow almost blew down one of my largest trees .. and several others
The ground is like mush.
My shop has 2 feet of water in it and has a sink hole under the concrete .
That's the one that my Gold wing fell into ...

 

[tbroye]

Drove through Winnemucca on Thursday the 23 and on Monday the 27 couldn't use normal way to get to 95/55 north had get off I80 and drive through town Lot of water same in Boise area. Twin Fall is wild this year. You got it bad. Seen that area up close it pretty when it a dry. Doesn't look bad west of town along the river but like you said it drains into your area.

 

[nativewooder]

Flooding

Farmers are the only people that deserve any sympathy. God gave them a brain but most of them don't use it. We have millions of people moving into Florida every day and they inevitably buy land from con artists who never tell them that it will be under water in the wet season. All the developer does is dig some canals to drain the swamp of surface water and then when the land has dried out, they build houses on it and the suckers pay ridiculous prices for them until the rainy season and then they scream at the politicians for allowing them to buy swampland. Good Luck, Farmer, and I hope you have the sense to build above the 100 year flood line rather than look for welfare to bail you out.

 

[mark james]

Farmers are the only people that deserve any sympathy. God gave them a brain but most of them don't use it. We have millions of people moving into Florida every day and they inevitably buy land from con artists who never tell them that it will be under water in the wet season. All the developer does is dig some canals to drain the swamp of surface water and then when the land has dried out, they build houses on it and the suckers pay ridiculous prices for them until the rainy season and then they scream at the politicians for allowing them to buy swampland. Good Luck, Farmer, and I hope you have the sense to build above the 100 year flood line rather than look for welfare to bail you out.

In 1995 I built a 9,000 SF Child Care Center 2' above the 100 year flood plain. I also took out flood insurance although I was told it was not necessary.

In 2003 I had a flood. 18" of water in 1/3 of the building. $85,000 in renovations. So the flood was 3 1/2" feet above the flood plain. I have no faith in the flood plain maps. I'm not complaining about the gov't, just saying the maps are not accurate here anymore.

I sold the building and business in 2008. In 2011 it flooded again... So 2 floods exceeding the 100 year flood plain in 8 years.

EDIT: If I have to build anything again, I'd go above the 500 year floodplain!

 

[Woodchipper]

Sorry to hear about the flooding. Hope everything works out for you. Had experiences with floods in central Ohio in 1952 and 1957. 1952- water was six inches deep in the dairy barn. 1957- it was six feet in the barn. Lost our dairy cattle as the levee broke and it was basically a flash flood. My father's brother lived on the farm and barely made it out.

 

[farmer]

Your drive through winnemucca

Drove through Winnemucca on Thursday the 23 and on Monday the 27 couldn't use normal way to get to 95/55 north had get off I80 and drive through town Lot of water same in Boise area. Twin Fall is wild this year. You got it bad. Seen that area up close it pretty when it a dry. Doesn't look bad west of town along the river but like you said it drains into your area.

When you crossed the bridge leaving Winnemucca you were with in 300 yards of my house ...

The river has come up 6 inches since you posted .
I dropped in another pump today , river is up but getting better control of the flooding on my property .
I am trying to get the water level down in the barn .....

 

[farmer]

Water

Sorry to hear about the flooding. Hope everything works out for you. Had experiences with floods in central Ohio in 1952 and 1957. 1952- water was six inches deep in the dairy barn. 1957- it was six feet in the barn. Lost our dairy cattle as the levee broke and it was basically a flash flood. My father's brother lived on the farm and barely made it out.

Thanks
We had a Grade B dairy before I went in the service . when Nixon sold wheat to Russia .
The price of wheat tripled, without wheat the cows don't produce enough butter fat content and the creamery will not buy your milk ,, we sold out in less then 30 days of Nixon doing that.

I am nervous ,,, I worry about one section of the levy
I was given a 2 pallets of 100 lbs bags of bentonite .
I think I will start hauling them in in the morning ...

Its really hard to watch and know your helpless to do anything .. I cant imagine watching your whole Dairy get destroyed,

 

[Skie_M]

Do you know how to use your kitty litter? (the bentonite clay)

 

[tbroye]

Farmer

Look out there may be another storm coming this weekend. for starting Thursday night through Friday rain and up to 2ft of snow in the Sierra. Hope we ring all the moisture out before it get to you

 

[farmer]

flooding

Bought a used double wide trailer on a lot today .
Get the utilities turned on tomorrow ,and start moving in .
The place is allot higher then the river ..