System uses water to keep floodwater out | Community Spirit

A local man has come up with a way to battle floodwater with more water.

Last year, the Green River flooded Dan Guyll's backyard.

This year, with King County already under a flood warning, he's building a wall using no sand.

"It's 5,616 pounds of weight -- solid weight," said Guyll.

The system, called ClimaCover, was invented by John Baum. Basically, it's large bladder you fill with water. And it could replace sandbags for good.

If you were to use sandbags to build the same wall in Guyll's backyard, it would take 5,400 bags things to protect the entire house. Plus it would take a whole team of people an entire week to get it done.

But it took Baum's team no time at all to fill one of the ClimaCover bladders.

"With your regular water pressure, to lay it and roll it, fill it, you're looking at about 30 minutes," he said.

And after winter passes, you simply dump the water back into the river -- a luxury you don't get with sandbags.

"What do you do with them when you're done? you've got thousands of sandbags here lined-up and you have to dispose of them somehow and you can't leave them up all year long," said Guyll.

During last year's heavy winter storms, tons of sand worked its way into the Seattle sewer system. The sand even clogged up a pump at the West Point Water Treament Facility in Magnolia, and part of the plant shut down.

Guyll said he looked all over for an alternative, "from New Orleans to California," but his search brought him right back home.

He found Baum in Kent.

"We feel a heck of a lot better. We were really stressed out this year," said Guyll.

Baum said his invention costs half of what normal sandbagging would cost a homeowner, and takes just one day to install.