New river gauge installation begins in Haywood County
There are currently 12 river flow gauges in Haywood. With the new gauges, river monitoring sites will increase by more than 65%. Donated photo
The first of eight planned new river gauges will be installed in Haywood County this week. When complete the project will greatly enhance Haywood County Emergency Services’ ability to monitor upstream river levels.
Three years after Tropical Storm Fred devastated the communities of Cruso, Bethel, Canton, old Asheville Highway and North Hominy these new gauges offer hope of better early detection when upstream flooding begins. Earlier and more accurate river level monitoring will make earlier warning possible which may, in turn, save lives.
“We are pleased to finally start work on a project we’ve long needed here. The data gathered at these sites will greatly increase our situational awareness and help us better prepare for and warn people about future floods,” said Assistant Emergency Management Coordinator Cody Parton, who heads this project.
Contractor Distinctive AFWS Designs, Inc. is installing the gauges and hopes to finish the project in a few weeks, weather permitting.
The eight gauges will be installed on North Carolina Department of Transportation-owned bridges in areas that will provide the earliest possible warning of increasing river levels in critical areas.
Specifically, they will be installed on the East Fork of the Pigeon River in Cruso (three sites), near Little East Fork in Lake Logan, Dutch Cove Creek, North Hominy Creek, the Pigeon River near Wells Road, Canton and Richland Creek in Waynesville.
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Until now, the farthest upstream river gauge was on the East Fork at the Mundy Field bridge.
“As we saw with [Tropical Storm] Fred, that’s just not enough warning when we see the river rising. Maybe for Canton and Clyde but for Cruso, it was already too late when the Mundy Field monitor indicated trouble,” said Parton.
One of the action items in the aftermath of the Fred flooding was to increase the availability of flood data by adding new river level monitors further upstream and additional gauges to supplement those already in place.
There are currently 12 river flow gauges in Haywood. With the new gauges, river monitoring sites will increase by more than 65%.
These new gauges will also tie into the North Carolina Flood Inundation and Mapping & Alert Network, known as FIMAN. Residents can use the tools on FIMAN to track flooding in near real-time and request to be alerted if the river is rising at a chosen river monitoring site in the network.
