Tips for flooding:
For those living off campus, here are some tips to prepare your house or apartment for flooding risks:
-Build an emergency kit and create a family plan for communication.
-Elevate electronics if you live in an area that has a high flood risk.
-If possible, make barriers to stop floodwater from entering the building.
For anyone driving in or near flooded areas, here are tips for car safety:
-Six inches of water reaches the bottom of most cars and will cause loss of control and possible stalling.
-Many vehicles will float on a foot of water.
-Two feet of rushing water can carry away most vehicles, including SUVs and pickups.
-Don’t drive through a flooded road because depth is not always obvious. The road bed may be washed out under the water, and you could be stranded or trapped.
-Don’t drive around a barricade.
-Don’t try short cuts. Stick to designated evacuation routes.
-It’s harder to notice flood issues during the night, so be cautious.
Source: ready.gov/floods
The expected rise in temperature and rain could lead to minor flooding in Muncie this weekend.
Ball State director of engineering and construction said the leftover snow could block drains.
Ball State meteorology professor said rain would have to go past two inches to be a concern.
As the temperature starts to warm up and snow melts this weekend, Ball State may experience minor flooding.
Dave Call, an assistant meteorology professor, said low-lying places that normally experience excess water due to heavy rainstorms may flood this weekend.
The National Weather Service predicted a high of about 44 degrees Saturday. Call said this is warmer than the temperatures Muncie has been experiencing, but it isn’t high enough above the freezing point to anticipate widespread flooding.
“If we had a rise to 50 or 60 degrees, we would be real worried because all of the snow would melt real rapidly,” Call said. “With it only getting up to 40, the snow should melt fairly gradually.”
The weather service predicts rain for this weekend, which also could increase the chance of flooding. Call said that 1 to 1.5 inches of rain wouldn’t be enough to cause too much flooding, but 2 inches could have an effect.
Jim Lowe, director of engineering and construction operations, said this situation is very different from most situations with the potential of flooding.
He is mostly concerned about the possibility of snow blocking drains, causing the water from rain and melting snow to accumulate.
“Under normal conditions when it’s rain, we would be OK — we would withstand that,” Lowe said. “Certainly, there would be puddles here and there. In this situation, you’ve got snow that’s going to hold it back.”
The grounds crew is taking precautions to ease the situation.
“What we will do, as we do when we know we have the potential to flood, is we’ll go back and make sure all of our sub pumps are working,” Lowe said. “We make sure all of our docks are clean where they are low lying. And any drains that can be identified and cleaned will be cleaned of snow, so water will flow through those and flow away.”
They will start taking large piles of snow from campus to the Heath Farm Recreation Field, which is north of campus. Lowe said this process would take days.
Although Call predicts the flooding will be considerably less than in December, Lowe said it’s difficult to predict how bad and where excess water may collect.
“I can’t think of a time when we’ve had this much snow fall in this short of a period of time,” Lowe said. “It could be interesting or it could be a nonevent.”
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