Sandbags may have replaced mountain bikes as the “in”
thing for Boise residents this fall. Forty thousand sandbags were
recently snapped up by homeowners and businesses after the city’s
public works department offered them to the public to ward off
possible floods and mud slides this winter. City officials say an
August fire that denuded the foothills above town spurred their
decision to provide the bags.
Ironically, it was
a city employee who started the fire. The temperature was 104
degrees at the police firing range when a Boise officer using
tracer ammunition ignited the blaze.
With the
soil in poor condition to absorb water, scientists believe that
above-average rains could cause a 100-year flood condition, says
the BLM’s Janielle Smith. Resource managers are digging 80 miles of
trenches, re-contouring the landscape and using straw-bale check
dams in an attempt to slow runoff, she says. Re-seeding of the
14,000-acre burn is planned for the spring.
*John Rosapepe
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Boise braces for floods.
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