What does 8 Million Sandbags Look Like?

Recently we learned that the Bismarck/Mandan Area will require 8 Million Sandbags for the flood fighting efforts this week.   About 4 Million have been produced and we have 4 Million to go.

The folks here at BisManOnline wondered what 8 Million Sandbags would actually look like, so we did a little math and a couple of sketches.

First, we based this on a sandbag size of 18" x 12" x 3" - Sandbags come in a variety of sizes, but we picked this size for the purposes of this little exercise...

First some facts:
  • 8 Million Sandbags, layed end-to-end, would stretch from Seattle, WA to Chicago, IL
  • At 35 Pounds each, thats 280,000,000 Pounds or 140,000 Tons  (YEP, you read that right:  280 MILLION POUNDS!)
  • You could make a sandbag dike 5 wide and 4 tall all the way from Bismarck to Minot
  • Stacked on top of each other, they would reach a height of 379 Miles, that would extend OVER 300 Miles into SPACE.

Now - On to the pictures.   First we start with a typical person and a typical sandbag on a pallet.   Doesn't seem to bad right?

  1 Sandbag

 

So, now, lets fill the pallet with 100 Sandbags....   About 3500 POUNDS of sand!

Thats pretty heavy - Takes a forklift to move this thing around


  100 Sandbags


A 100 sandbags would get your started diking your house, but, you will need more.

Lets image 10 rows of pallets, 10 pallets deep (100 pallets in total).

This would be 10,000 sandbags on the ground, weighing in at 350,000 pounds....


  10,000 Sandbags


Now we're getting somewhere! Thats a lot of truckloads of sand!

Let's make it 10 pallets tall:


  100,000 Sandbags

Now we are looking at 100,000 total sandbags.

So, yes that is a lot, but lets look at how many we need for Bismarck/Mandan's Flood Fight.







Ready?.........



Here it is:




8 Million Sandbags






Get out and fight the flood folks - Fill sandbags at Sandbag Central, we have a tall order to fill.