Flood Management Project

As part of one of my classes groups of us have been set different 'real jobs'.  This involves being given a project which is current and working with the clients to solve the issue, a bit like what I had to do for the Engineering Education Scheme but on a slightly smaller scale.

My teams project involves the fact that the city of Norman has recently been re-zoned for flooding and areas that were once in the flood plain are now no longer considered at as high risk. The emergency managers however think that 

this area is still going to flood and want to obtain funding to protect this land. This project then has involved several important and official meetings already and has really given me a taste of working in emergency management in the real world. An area which whilst interesting I definitely don't think I want to submit myself into full time. 

The first meeting involved meeting with the city's emergency manager. Whilst at the meeting there were several phone calls interrupting us because there were high winds that day and on the Main street there is a high rise building called the Vista which is structurally unstable, and if winds of over 50mph were sustained for at least 3 minutes then the building would collapse. It was decided to close the street and evacuate the people from it and surrounding buildings, but was quite exciting to be there when the decision was made.

Next we had to attend a local meeting which was broadcast on local cable channels in which a plan for the city's storm water management plan was discussed, and then later in the week a trip to the State Capitol in Oklahoma City to sit in on the state emergency manager's meeting and to meet the lady who we will meet this week to help us produce an application for the money needed to protect the area, so another trip to th

e city is due soon.

Oklahoma state Capitol Building

Our job is to produce the application for submission to the State for the flood man

agement funding. Some other members of the group have also been on a field site visit to document the area. It really is interesting to be able to work on a real project which on its completion will help the city where I've been living for the past year.