Corps activates Emergency Operations Center to provide flood-fight support

Published April 19, 2013
Flood 2013 Graphic

Flood 2013 Graphic

Corps activates Emergency Operations Center to provide flood-fight support

ROCK ISLAND, Ill. (April 19) – In response to National Weather Service forecasts predicting the potential for major flooding in areas along the Upper Mississippi and Illinois rivers and their tributaries, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Rock Island District, activated its Emergency Operations Center on Wednesday, April 17.

The Corp’s Rock Island District, through its Emergency Management mission, is assisting cities and communities with flood-fight supplies and technical support upon request. Those efforts include deploying specially trained Flood Area Engineers (FAEs) to provide technical assistance to local emergency managers and providing expedient flood fighting equipment and supplies to include HESCO barriers, sandbags, pumps and plastic sheeting.

The District has approximately 60 specially trained flood area engineers who contact drainage and levee districts to coordinate flood-fighting activities and ensure flood-fighting supplies are available if needed. The District has a stock of five million sandbags, 125 pumps and miles of sheeting ready for deployment. Additional flood-fight material will be procured as needed. Currently, 188,000 sandbags, 13 pumps, 28 rolls of sheeting, and 900 feet of HESCO Bastion flood-fight barriers have been dispatched. Additionally, 29 FAEs are in the field providing flood-fighting support. The District has also opened an alternate Emergency Operations Center in the Quincy, Ill., area to more quickly address flood response needs.

The Rock Island District’s Emergency Management mission serves communities in a 78,000-square-mile, five-river-basin area which includes Iowa and Illinois and portions of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Missouri. Communities facing flood events can request Corps assistance through their state emergency management agency.

For more information please visit our Rock Island District Flood Web site at www.mvr.usace.army.mil/About/Offices/EmergencyManagement/2013Flood.aspx.

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Contact
Ron Fournier
309-794-5274

Release no. 13-020