Sitting at the corner of Howard Street and Highway 79 is a plywood shipping crate that inventor Al Arellanes says holds the answer to future battles against floods along the Mississippi River and elsewhere.
“It deploys in one second,” Arellanes said of his product, known as RDFW, for Rapid Deployment Flood Wall, and manufactured by Geocell, his San Francisco-based company.
The company’s claims raise eyebrows in flood-prevention circles, where the standard method of holding back floodwaters remains sandbagging, a painstakingly slow process that requires massive amounts of labor to fill, carry and place each 30- to 40-pound bag.
Arellanes demonstrated his invention beneath the emergency lights at the town’s main intersection.
RDFW is a 4-foot square, 8-inch high interconnecting grid system made of the same plastic used in disposable water bottles. The 17-pound sheets fold flat, somewhat like the cardboard bottle separators in a case of wine, then snap into their ready position without the need for any tools. Once fitted together, as wide as needed and as high as 14 feet in some applications, the grids are filled by a front loader with sand and, presto, instant wall.
“We’re rated for nine feet of water,” said Arellanes, who likes to call his product “Legos for adults.”
Rey Rodriguez noted that sand will naturally condense if it’s held in place. “Get a Coke cup from McDonald’s, cut the bottom off it, fill it with sand and you can stand on it,” he said. With RDFW’s lateral reinforcement technique, “What we’re doing is reinforcing soil.”
Photo by Geocell.
Inventor Says He’s Built A Better Sandbag
June 26, 2008 by Rich | 4 Comments
In Disaster, Invention, Safety
Angela on June 26th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
If that really works like it’s supposed to, it sounds like it could replace those traditional methods.
cassy on June 26th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
If it really a big help, then i suggest that he will bring it to global market.
Moody on June 30th, 2008 at 6:31 am
It is time that FIMA take it for a test drive and implement it if it works!
Keith on June 30th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
The only problem with this, is the same problem that prompts the use of sandbags, transportation. If you had sand near a levee site, and could get a bucket loader up on the levee, sure. Same with a street. Sandbags are used for ease of transport by one person over time. It would be really hard to A) lift this thing once full, and B) conform it exactly to the space needing sandbagging. Perhaps some smaller bits would help with that, but then they’re just like sandbags.