Sociology students conducting a fall research project found that Sacramento isn’t properly organized to handle a major flood because of the lack of a coherent plan from state officials.

With the development of housing communities and agriculture in major flood plains, the class’s fall project investigated the city’s plan in case of a levee breach ?” Sacramento is protected by about 1,600 miles of levees. Students found that state officials weren’t giving them clear answers.

The disaster plan used by the city, which the students referred to as the ‘multihazzard’ plan, was not available to the public for fear of it being used by terrorists, according to the students’ report.

Loran Garcia, a Sac State sociology graduate student said state officials didn’t give the class straight answers when they asked about the city’s flood plan.”We were very frustrated a lot of the time,” Garcia said. “We all tried different routes to try to get information, and sort of each one of the people who we tried to talk to were telling us to talk to another person.”

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the students of Sociology 238 examined the possibility of a major flood in Sacramento. Sociology Professor Kevin Wehr ?” who assigned his students the semester-long class project ?” said his main goal was to share the learning experience of Sac State with the community and to move the students to experience education inside and outside of the classroom.

“I believe strongly in trying to move away from the traditional ivory tower idea of education,” Wehr said.

In the report, students said they came away from the project unsure that the city was prepared in case of a major flood. Wehr said he wasn’t too surprised when he and his students were given the runaround by public officials, but still doesn’t feel comfortable about the city’s lack of readiness.

“It’s a situation where the more you know the less safe you feel,” Wehr said.

In light of the January flooding, Executive Director Stein Buer of the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency, an organization formed to address the Sacramento’s area’s vulnerability to catastrophic flooding, said the levees in the Sacramento area performed adequately and water was diverted to the Yolo bypass as designed. Following the flooding, emergency repairs were done to several levees in the Natomas area to prevent boils. No major levee breaches were reported.

Sociology 238 is a graduate seminar course in environmental sociology. Wehr said he wanted to assign a project that was timely and would interest his students. With Hurricane Katrina hitting the Gulf Coast at the beginning of the fall semester, an analysis of flooding in the Sacramento area was the choice topic.

The project involved the entire class, and the students were asked to conclude what would happen if the Sacramento area flooded by researching the history of floods in Sacramento; construction and analysis of dams and levees; the risk and insurance policies for living in flood zones; and the city’s emergency plans for a major flood.

In a fall article regarding the threat of flooding on campus, The State Hornet contacted Mark Ellis from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Ellis said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is striving to provide 200-plus year protection to Sacramento.

Matthew Beltran can be reached at [email protected]

Related Sites:

Click to view the full report