L shaped barriers. Flood redirection.

[Space Doubt Caver]

When Mossdale flooded all those years ago, the cave rescue had to redirect and pump the majority of the rivers flow and pump millions of gallons of water before attempting to enter the cave,

The Thailand cave rescue also involved pumping and redirecting millions of gallons of water,

Today there is a new flood/flash flood redirecting tech called L shaped barriers, check out the video link below.

Would this be useful to the Cave Rescue in situations where they have to slow down the flow of a flood or flash flood.

There is some really impressive tests of these barriers online holding back water up to waist height and can be put in all kinds of configurations and layouts.

These barriers can be deployed and put in place within minutes by an effective team.

So just to purely theorise: if an incident like Mossdale was to happen with a flash flood, if the cave rescue could get on scene, deploy these L shaped flood barriers, would it or could it make a big difference to efforts for slowing down or redirecting water flow of flash floods?

I look forward to seeing what people think about this.

 

[Babyhagrid]

They look like they work well on very flat ground, eg tarmac. But probably would not work well on rough ground like a fell

 

[Space Doubt Caver]

They look like they work well on very flat ground, eg tarmac. But probably would not work well on rough ground like a fell

They do tests on all kinds of uneven surfaces, and you still get a small amount of underflow, but it does still hold back the majority, as shown in this video.

 

[Steve Clark]

I could see these working in situations where you would want to divert the flow away from an entrance in the side of a stream. e.g. potentially somewhere in Easegill if you could get them to work on whatever surface they could sit on.

Entrance in a shakehole is a different problem, there's nowhere to divert the stream to. Somewhere like Tatham wife is like a giant funnel which has eroded and evolved to capture all the water on a massive flank of Inglebourgh. The water would have to go uphill or the barrier be hundreds of metres long to divert it around the shakehole.

There some words in 'Race Against Time' describing water being diverted from an entrance only to appear at the bottom of the first pitch by a different route.

(edit - clicked enter on half a response)

 

[Samouse1]

I wouldn’t want to be the poor bugger who has to porter them up the fell, but knowing I’m the youngest member of the team it would be my job!

 

[Space Doubt Caver]

I just think there could be some of the modern flood redirection tech could be used, in certain situations, but also for different scenarios there are different designs, but as @Steve Clark rightfully says, it's a race against time,

There are other new flood defences available but I think some of which would all be useful at different flood scenarios,

Here is one that is a bag you roll out and fill with water,

Where speed is essential this could be good as it can be used for all surface types.

 

[cap n chris]

No, because they are based upon a gradient down which the volume flows under the effect of gravity. Placing them across a valley section would be ineffective.

 

[mikem]

However, as noted they could direct flow away from something at the edge. Basically they might work but unlikely to be in the right place at the right time.