3 New Innovations That Are Better Than Sandbags When Utah Sees Flooding

With what's left of Hurricane Rachel barreling towards Southern Utah, you may be thinking about possible flooding. There have been some new technology to improve on traditional sandbags in these situations. Here's three interesting options.

Quick Dam Flood Bags

These look and act like sand bags without the shovel or the sand. They are light weight when dry and are filled with super absorbent polymers that swell when exposed to water. They are available local hardware stores.

This saves having to lug around heavy sand filled bags. Just lay them where you want to divert the water. You can spray them with the hose to make them swell or wait till the rain starts falling to do it.

Flood Gates or Barriers

These are aluminum or plastic barriers that can surround your doorways and redirect the water. They are made flexible to expand to the area you need. They are also not as heavy as a stack of sand bags.

These are available at online from local hardware stores. It is impressive how well these can work. They also easily connect together to make a barrier for larger areas. These are a more expensive option.

Water-Filled Barriers

These are effective and redirecting flood waters from a street or larger areas. They can be made from softer plastic like the video above or hard plastic barriers like you see along roadways.

Like the other options here, they don't require an army of volunteers to deploy. This would be something to look into if you have an area that has a history of flooding problems.

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Hopefully there won't be a lot of flooding with upcoming storms in Utah. Should you need to protect property, these are some good options that are available now.