At the height of the Ottawa River flood, some 800 soldiers and reservists and hundreds more volunteers were helping to bag sand, transport it to flood sites and put the bags into position. Between them, they filled and placed about 1.5 million bags of sand. Now the city has to figure out a way to divert all that sand from landfill sites.
Which raises the question: Why, if we can build skyscrapers and send probes into space, are we still holding back floodwaters with low-tech sandbags and hundreds of workers?
There are products that hold back floodwaters with fewer workers, less time and no sand. The one drawback is that they’re more expensive — although they’re designed to be used multiple times.
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