Flood Emergency Response

Hydrau-Tech has extensive experience in emergency flood response projects and have been designing scour countermeasures for over 200 scour critical/flood-damaged bridges in Colorado and New Mexico for the past six years. Hydrau-Tech specializes in analyzing, evaluating, and inspecting existing bridges, and advising structural engineers on the safety of bridges with respect to scour. They perform bridge modeling and design scour countermeasures for hundreds of bridges and are continuing to supervise construction of countermeasures. A brochure of Hydrau-Tech’s flood emergency scour mitigation experience can be downloaded here.

Hydrau-Tech provides services including:

  • Hydraulic modeling of various aspects of bridge openings
  • Design of scour countermeasures to provide bridge stabilization
  • Environmental river mechanics/engineering
  • Culvert Design
  • Hydrology and drainage design (storm/sewer)
  • Advising bridge closures and providing alternate routes
Relevant Projects:
Bridge Scour Mitigation and Transportation Infrastructure Design
  1. 2013 Colorado Flood Emergency Hydraulic Response

    In September 2013, Colorado’s Front Range experienced severe flooding resulting in various high flow frequency events including but not limited to a 500-year event. Hydrau-Tech, Inc. was selected as one of the two companies to respond, inspect, and design hydraulic scour countermeasures for the Colorado Department of Transportation’s (CDOT) failed and damaged bridges. During the flooding event, Hydrau-Tech engineers inspected bridges along Boulder Creek, Big Thompson, South Platte, St. Vrain, and Cache la Poudre Rivers and advised structural engineers on the safety of bridges with respect to scour. Currently, Hydrau-Tech, Inc. is reviewing over 700 bridges and will be in charge of providing scour countermeasure design for over 100 bridges and will be conducting supervision during the construction phase.

  2. Plan of Action Scour Critical Bridges

    In 1991 the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) required all states to provide Plans of Action (POA) for scour critical bridges. A nationwide mandated requirement by the FHWA, tasked the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) to re-evaluate and develop POA reports for each of the 243 bridges identified as scour critical or structures with unknown foundations. CDOT created a program to address the scour critical bridges and created a multi-disciplinary POA team. As a part of this effort, Hydrau-Tech, Inc. was in charge of conducting 135 POA studies and developed individualized reports for each structure over a period of 3 years. As of September, 2013, Hydrau-Tech, Inc. has completed 113 POA reports for CDOT, along with an additional 19 reports for structures with unknown foundations.

  3. Pillars Boat Launch Ramp and Dock Design on Kena River, Alaska

    The project site for the Pillars Boat Launch ramp and dock design is located on Kenai River, Alaska, at approximately River Mile 12.5.  Kenai River is a world- class salmon-producing stream and the proposed project area is a popular site for fishing.  The State of Alaska acquired the Pillars site and planned to increase the size and capacity of the launch ramp in order to better accommodate the large number of fisherman using the river.

  4. Design of Cross Culverts for Colorado State Highway 82 Project in Snowmass Canyon

    In this Colorado Department of Transportation project, large debris-flow culverts crossing the new four-lane State Highway 82 near Aspen, Colorado were designed. Along the project site, the highway passes through Snowmass Canyon along a series of small debris- producing watersheds.

  1. Numerical Simulation of Interstate 5 Bridge Failure Near Coaligna, California

In this continuation project, the Colorado State University engineers residing in Egypt continued their work with the Egyptian Ministry of Irrigation and Agriculture.  Canal automation using self-adjusting downstream-controlled gates was applied to irrigation canals.  Modeling of these systems, design and construction of civil works continued.