Flood Control
Between 1955 and 1961, an extensive flood control system was constructed along the Big Sioux and some of its tributaries in Sioux Falls to protect the city from a 100-year flood event. Features of the system include 29 miles (47 km) of levees, a floodwall in downtown, and a 15,000 feet (4,600 m) diversion channel with a dam at one end and a 118-foot (36 m) spillway at the other. The diversion channel connects two ends of the Big Sioux's natural loop around central Sioux Falls in an effort to channel floodwater away from the city. The levees then act to contain any floodwater either remaining in the natural channel or originating from Skunk Creek (whose mouth is downriver of the diversion dam). Additionally, a greenway covers much of the river's floodplain in southern and eastern Sioux Falls, further mitigating any property damage from high water.
Read more about this topic: Big Sioux River
Famous quotes containing the words flood and/or control:
“Men hold themselves cheap and vile; and yet a man is a fagot of thunderbolts. All the elements pour through his system: he is the flood of the flood, and fire of the fire; he feels the antipodes and the pole, as drops of his blood: they are the extension of his personality.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The preservation of life seems to be rather a slogan than a genuine goal of the anti-abortion forces; what they want is control. Control over behavior: power over women. Women in the anti-choice movement want to share in male power over women, and do so by denying their own womanhood, their own rights and responsibilities.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929)