When you’re looking for flood barriers and flood protection systems for your city, subdivision, or private land, it’s important to know the options you have available. So, we decided to do a side-by-side comparison between our TrapBag® flood barriers and sandbags from Garrison Flood Control.
The Importance of a Reliable Flood Protection System
Having reliable flood barriers in place can save lives and prevent devastating property damage. No matter which type you end up using, these can mean the difference between residents losing their homes during major flood events.
While we’re definitely biased, we’re going to explore the differences between the two types of flood barriers, how they work, and where each type is most beneficial.
TrapBag® Flood Barriers
Intended as an alternative to the traditional sandbag, TrapBag is a low-cost, rapid-deploy flood control barrier. It can protect life and property from natural disasters ranging from hurricane storm surges to mudslides. Agencies around the U.S. and the world have relied on TrapBag barriers to protect cities, natural habitats, and shorelines from the forces of nature.
Key Features and Specifications
TrapBag barriers are an interconnected system of pentagonal cells that are sloped on one side and vertical on the other. When in storage, the system folds up like an accordion to save space.
TrapBag comes in 50-foot sections, which can be connected to each other. They are available in heights of either 2 or 4 feet. While both dimensions have optional lids, TrapBag does not necessarily need these to function for flood control purposes.
When you no longer need the TrapBag barrier, disassembly is as easy as cutting open the bag to release the sand or other filler material. TrapBags should not be reused once filled.
Benefits of Using TrapBag Flood Barriers
We’ve mentioned before how versatile TrapBags are and how they can prevent millions of dollars in property damage. However, there are a few other benefits to these flood barrier systems:
- Easier to fill: A team of two people with a skid steer or other heavy equipment can finish building and filling a TrapBag barrier within a few hours at most. By contrast, it can take dozens of people hours or days to build a sufficient flood barrier with traditional sandbags—giving them less time to evacuate to safety or prepare individually. They also require up to 40% less material than a traditional stacked sandbag wall.
- More durable: Traditional sandbag barriers come with a large margin of error, meaning they’re more likely to give way during severe flooding and cause massive damage. By contrast, because each cell in the barrier is interconnected,
- Military certified: TrapBag barriers have been tried, tested, and approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for their ability to create a watertight barrier for flooding, storm surge protection, erosion control, mudslides, and more.
Garrison Flood Control Systems
Garrison Flood Control offers multiple types of flood barriers from different vendors around the globe. However, for the sake of this product comparison, let’s focus solely on the Garrison Traditional Sandbag.
Key Features and Specifications
The Garrison traditional sandbag is a standard, individual sandbag similar to other brands and generic options. Municipalities and homeowners can stack them on top of each other in the event of floods or other emergencies.
Each sandbag is 14 inches by 26 inches. They use a 6mm thick, polypropylene fabric with 10 by 10 thread. The fabric also incorporates 2.5 percent 1600-hour UV protection to help the bags last longer. Each bag weighs up to 40 pounds when full.
Benefits of Using Garrison Flood Control Systems
Garrison Flood Control’s sandbags have many different uses across multiple industries and situations. Here are some of the highlights at a glance:
- Versatile: As Garrison Flood Control advertises, their sandbags can be used for everything from flood and erosion control to ballast for fences and signs or even earthbag and earthen homes. In theory, they are also reusable—however, their durability could deteriorate with repeated use.
- Economical: Each pack of 10 sandbags costs $12.95 before taxes, shipping, and handling, making them one of the most affordable flood protection systems on the market.
- Easy storage: The bags are stored flat, making them easy to transport wherever they’re needed.
Why Use TrapBag Over Garrison for Flood Control Solutions?
TrapBag was designed to be more effective than traditional sandbags like those that Garrison Flood Control offers. These are just a few reasons why.
Requires Less Material and Labor
One 4-foot by 100-foot section of TrapBag needs only two units. By contrast, the same dimensions would require roughly 8,000 sandbags and nearly twice as much sand or gravel to be effective.
Even more, a team of two can assemble a barrier of this size within a matter of a few hours—or less, if you have a bulldozer or a large skid steer. However, it would require dozens of people to fill 8,000 sandbags in the same amount of time, or potentially take longer if there isn’t enough manpower.
More Cost-Effective
While Garrison sandbags are affordable individually, TrapBag barriers are more cost-effective in the long term.
For example, one 4-foot by 100-foot section of TrapBag needs only two units and would cost roughly $5,500. Garrison only sells their sandbags in packs of 5,000 or 10,000—meaning you would have 2,000 left over for a total of $3,727.95.
While that sounds cheaper on its face, it’s important to remember that traditional sandbags also require additional labor costs for assembly due to the added hours or days of work involved. Combined with the higher margin of error, the traditional sandbags ultimately end up costing more.
While both preventative options are less expensive than post-disaster recovery and restoration work, the math speaks for itself on which option has better value.
More Durable
Sure, we could write about the added durability TrapBag offers—but we’ll let some photos do the talking for us.
Let TrapBag Be Your Go-To Solution for Flooding
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Need flood barrier solutions in a pinch? We have you covered. Visit our shop, or give our staff a call at (239) 674-6611 at any time.
