Drones, supercomputers and sonar that scans deep under water are helping to maintain flood control projects and predict just where rivers will roar out of their banks. The Corps also now uses high-definition sonar in its daily operations to survey the riverbed, pinpointing where maintenance work needs to be done, said Corps engineer Andy Simmerman. The Memphis district uses a 26-foot survey boat called the Tiger Shark, with a sonar head that looks like an old-fashioned vacuum cleaner and collects millions of points per square inch of data, Simmerman said. "These areas are 20 to 80 feet underwater, we'd never get to see them without sonar," Simmerman said. The sonar pointed engineers to the precise location of a log that was stuck 20 feet deep in murky water, keeping the culvert open.

Source: ABC News April 18, 2019 05:26 UTC