War-tested HESCO barriers used to protect Iowans from flooding

Editor's note: This story by Register reporter Tony Leys originally published in September 2016 during flooding in many Iowa communities, including Vinton. On April 30, 2019, a HESCO barrier broke, sending Mississippi River floodwaters rushing into downtown Davenport.

VINTON, Ia. – A war-zone staple has become an increasingly common sight in Iowa towns threatened by floodwaters.

Hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops used HESCO barriers to protect themselves from bullets and bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over the past week, similar barriers have been set up in Iowa as temporary flood walls.

The barriers are giant boxes made of sturdy metal netting covered by a tough fabric. They fold up and can be stacked on pallets. When unfolded, they can be linked together, then quickly filled with sand or gravel, dumped in by front-end loaders. The temporary walls can be wrapped in plastic sheeting for strength and extra water resistance.

In Vinton, the barriers were set up to protect the town’s fire station and power plant. They were holding up well as the Cedar River crested at its second-highest level ever.

Tom Richtsmeier, general manager of the electrical utility, joked that it’s fitting to use a military method to protect civilian buildings in a flood.

“This is a war – a war against nature,” he said.

Mayor John Watson said the HESCO barriers are much easier to set up than sandbags. A handful of people, working with power equipment, can set up several hundred feet of them in a few hours, he said. It would take dozens of volunteers all day to make a sandbag wall that big, and it wouldn't be as sturdy, he said.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency paid more than $100,000 for Vinton’s HESCO barriers, after sandbags failed to protect the town’s power plant during the record 2008 flood. The town had several days' warning of the current flood, plenty of time for workers to unfold the barriers, set them up and fill them with sand. When the flood is over, the barriers can be emptied and folded back up. 

Cedar Rapids has been among the Iowa towns using HESCO barriers. Crews there set up lines of them in areas that local officials had hoped would be protected by flood walls by now.

Iowa National Guard soldiers became accustomed to the HESCO barriers while serving on fortified bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sgt. First Class Terry Miller of Burlington first saw the structures when he served with the Guard in Iraq. The HESCO barriers were set up around latrines and sleeping areas, to protect soldiers from insurgents’ rockets and mortar rounds.

Miller, who served as a combat engineer, said a few soldiers can quickly set up a HESCO wall, minimizing the amount of time troops are exposed to enemy fire before the project is done. Also, he said, sandbag walls must be built much wider at the base. “Where with these, you can stack them right on top of each other,” he said.

Miller helped sling sandbags during the 1993 floods, but he didn’t consider the possible civilian use of HESCO barriers until he helped put them up during a Burlington flood in 2008. “It’s a phenomenal idea,” he said of their flood-wall use.