During the flood of 1997 we had only canoe access for 3 weeks. I was given a copy of a letter Senater Reid sent to the Army Corp of Engineers ordering them to clear all debris, sand and gravel bars before the spring run off of 1998. It is now the end of 2012 and the gravel bar across from my house has grown from 5 feet wide and about 100 feet long to 20 feet wide and 300 feet long. Senater Reid doesn't respond to my questions to him about this, so I gave up on that about 10 years ago. We just have to get it thru out heads that homeowners are on our own when it comes to things like this.

During the last two floods, I noticed that a lot of the storm drains were filled up with leafs and debrie. There were several blocks that flooded because the water was backed up in the storm drains. Today I went and cleaned out the storm drains on my block. Shouldn't the city being this with advance notice on potential flooding? The area of town that I live in used to be mostly wetlands, where excess water would drain 20 years ago. Now that has all been developed into a warehouse district with no where for the excess water to go except into residential neighbor hoods.