San Rafael, CA – The Marin County Flood Control and Water Conservation District will soon install nine new weather gauges that monitor rain, wind and stream activity. This will bring the total to 18 gauges across the county, boosting the district’s ability to predict and respond to potential flood events.
Installation of additional weather gauges improves public safety because flood control experts will have a more detailed view of developing weather events.While the locations for the new gauges are still being considered, the real-time data from the additional gauges will improve the district’s ability to monitor and react to real-time flooding as well as perform hydraulic modeling and develop designs for new flood mitigation projects.
In July 2016, the district received a $228,282 grant through the State of California Department of Water Resources (DWR). The cost of the new gauges is $122,470, of which 71 percent is eligible to be covered by the grant. Due to the overall public benefit, the County’s emergency preparedness funds paid the remaining $35,470 in lieu of using funds from the smaller district zone-based budgets.
“The addition of the new gauges will improve public safety because we will have a more detailed view of developing weather events,” said Roger Leventhal, the district’s Senior Civil Engineer. “It will help us speed up our ability to notify people of potential flooding.”
In 2016, the district led a partnership with the Napa County Flood Control District, the Sonoma County Water Agency and the City of Petaluma to address regional flood preparedness planning. The resulting North San Francisco Bay Counties Flood Emergency Preparedness and Response Improvement Project is intended to improve the region’s ability to respond to major storm events, such as those that caused significant damage to North Bay infrastructure in 2005, 2014 and 2016. The partnership helped facilitate the state DWR grant application process.
To foster open communications regarding flood mitigation, the partnering agencies will share data provided by the gauges. The data is available to the public in real-time through the County’s OneRain website.