The Midwest’s Destroyed Infrastructure Will Fail Again Unless It Gets A Major Overhaul (HBO)

[Music] the water was up to here see that little red house right there you can still see the water line on it how the bricks sweating Wow so that's about how deep it was here on this indigo this right here is that one of the city wells that they're just pulling to try to get back to working order to the cities without water supply because our water treatment plants right down over here over the corner and it's under water when the Midwest flooded last month water tore through a levee that was supposed to protect this town from the Missouri River everything you see up this way I farm well you kind of yeah most of Brett Adams corn and soybean farm is now a lake and he doesn't know when the levee will get rebuilt I'm hoping we're farming this next year that's where we're at I mean could be two years yeah could be three years you know we don't know right we haven't even started we haven't got the water off yet to even see the full scope of it when the levee broke on Saturday it was an emotional time when you saw the rush of water and the current come across here that's when you knew oh man this is not good do you think they could have been designed better or there could been more resources to prevent something like this well there's a lot of things have changed since 1950 yeah as the levee changed since 1950 no I mean the rivers completely different the management of the river is completely different the capacity of the river is completely different I'm 40 years old when I was growing up I don't remember getting a 5 or 6 inch rainfall now we do in 1936 Congress assigned the task of flood protection to the Army Corps of Engineers more than 100,000 miles of levees were built across America and without them wide swaths of the Midwest would flood every year but by restricting rivers levees make them deeper and more powerful increasing the risk of devastating floods in 2019 these aging systems buckled under the combined pressure of stronger rivers and heavier rains and with more rain on the way the Army Corps scrambling to put temporary fixes in place this is a record flood so all the funds we've had in the past nothing can touch what we what we just went through this last month everywhere we see a yellow dot that's a breach that's a breach that's the levee family so let me feel like you know first thing we need to do is close these critical breaches to stop the flow in and in trigger this infrastructure back in place because we need the infrastructure to repair the levees you know without these roads open you can't we transport material can't transport material or equipment you know we're done so what are you doing here now this is a temporary fix we have emergency contracts here quick contracts very minimal design we give the contractors a couple hours submit it they jump on it right away we're done within a week the flood waters haven't even subsided yet so can you describe like the scope of the challenge its immense it's it's it's a Biblical Flood for us you know it's gonna tax resources of everybody around we have over 500 miles of levee to provide to reduce the risk of flooding okay of those 500 miles we had over 50 breaches a long-term solution will take years simply making barriers higher as the climate changes could make future floods worse so the Army Corps is trying to widen the river as they rebuild are people asking you to build the levees higher there's a press conference at Council Bluffs where the governors of Nebraska Iowa Missouri broached that question why are we building it back to the same heights should we build it higher should we build a levees different if we built it in front of the existing level you'd be constraining the waterway more that would tend to let the water rise so a levee behind the existing breach that's the water way to get a little bit bigger so it's not gonna cause the water to rise up so it's gonna provide the same level of protection that we had before so there's gonna be a lot of setback levees we have to build we won't have a choice but to build a setback levee and you have money for that no no there we needed appropriations from Congress who need additional funds there that politicians in the Midwest are trying to get those funds but they'll need to take into account a landscape that's changing fast you know I said after 93 you know I was old enough to remember it and I remember helping my dad we moved all this stuff out and this and that never thought we'd see anything like it then 2011 came along and it's completely different but you know historic floods levees breaking in this net top man we're never gonna see that again well here we are eight years later and it's worse you you

Channel: VICE News

Views: 144,351

Keywords: VICE News, VICE News Tonight, VICE on HBO, news, vice video, vice news 2018, The Midwest’s Destroyed Infrastructure Will Fail Again Unless It Gets A Major Overhaul, midwest, missouri river, levees crumbling, flood protection system, climate change, global warming, flood risk, heavy rain, army corps of engineers, flood control, broken levees, nebraska levees, infrastructure damage, taxes, danger, congress, mississipppi, barrier, breaking news

Id: YYOdGI6fgu0

Length: 5min 8sec (308 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 20 2019