Gabion Diking on the Way to Bella Coola

Monday, October 04, 2010 04:55 PM

Bella Coola, B.C.- Gabion basket diking will be immediately deployed to protect critical infrastructure in the Bella Coola region as required.

More than one kilometer of gabion diking has been deployed to the Bella Coola Airport to help protect an important regional transportation link.

Gabions are a quick-diking system that uses foldable wire-mesh containers five metres long, one metre deep and one metre wide. These can be rushed to trouble spots, unfolded and rapidly filled with sand by front-end loaders, creating new
dikes much more quickly than traditional sandbagging. They were used during the the ice jam flooding in Prince George in the winter of 2007/'08.

Gabion diking is a temporary flood protection measure and will be removed once the flood situation has been completed or the risk of further flooding has been diminished.

The current weather forecast for the Bella Coola area shows a storm system, which could bring 50-70 millimetres of rain, is expected in the region Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 10 and 11.

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Posted on Monday, October 04, 2010 04:55 PM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: gus on October 4 2010 5:37 PM

Gabion basket is, as the article says, made of wire mesh and, without the addition of a material liner, is designed to hold stones, not sand. Sand would flow right through.

Such a wall is capable of considerable height as in the linked picture
http://www.flickr.com/photos/leaky_tiki/3160532327/lightbox

To fill them with sand, one needs a fabric added to the mesh to keep the sand in. There is also not enough strength to take such a wall very high
http://www.flickr.com/photos/diffuse/2175296842/lightbox/

Posted by: JohnA50 on October 5 2010 7:48 AM

The Big Bag System is similar to Gabion Baskets but as a temporary flood defense solution it is far superior. Each system is unfolded like a concertina and filled with sand in the same way. A system is 4.5m long 0.9m wide and 0.9m wide. Its key advantage is that it can easily be stacked 2 or 3 high in a pyramid formation. For pictures and more detial go to http://www.revetment.uk.com/services/big-bag