Quote:
Originally Posted by hulkrogan
The Elbow peaked almost 1000 cubic metres per second over normal flow. Lets go with that number because it's easy.
There are 604,800 seconds per week. That means 604 million m3 of excess water per week (this is probably too much as I'm sure the river could keep carrying a good chunk of it).
So if you build a reservoir with an average overall depth of 6m (20' deep, so much deeper in the middle to account for all the shallow areas) you need a reservoir that is 100km2 to hold one week of water, if you leave it bone dry otherwise.
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Exactly. Peak on the Elbow going into the reservoir was 1,240 cubic metres per second. Which was the equivalent of a 1 in 500 year flood event. We were able to significantly drain the reservoir and intentionally flood downtown before the peak flow hit. When the peak hit it filled the reservoir in a couple of hours. The lead flood engineer described it as trying to catch the water from a fire hose with a tea cup.