Trump’s border wall probably will require the installation of hundreds of storm gates to prevent flash floods from undermining or knocking it over, gates that must be left open for months every summer during “monsoon season” in the desert, according to U.S. border officials, agents and engineers familiar with the plans.

The open, unmanned gates in remote areas already have allowed for the easy entry of smugglers and migrants into the United States.

At locations along the U.S. southern border where such gates already are in operation, Border Patrol agents must manually raise them every year before the arrival of the summer thunderstorms that convert riverbeds into raging torrents that carry massive amounts of water and debris, including sediment, rocks, tree limbs and vegetation. Trump’s wall, which features 30-foot metal bollards spaced four inches apart, effectively acts as a sewer grate that traps the debris; when clogged, the barriers cannot withstand the power of the runoff.

Because the gates typically are located in isolated areas that lack electricity, they cannot be operated from afar. That requires the Border Patrol to leave the gates open for months, increasing the need for U.S. agents to monitor the sites because smugglers and other border-crossers can enter through the large gaps and ­advance northward following stream channels and narrow canyons to avoid detection.

…They initially were designed to be hoisted by agents using the winch on their Border Patrol vehicles, Ladd said, but the gates were so heavy that “the front end of their trucks would start lifting off the ground.”

…At several locations in Arizona where construction crews are racing to erect the structure, workers have been leaving gaps at creek beds and river channels because they do not yet have the new fencing panels with storm gates.

…Smugglers have learned how to cut through the new steel bollards using common tools they can buy at hardware stores, and some have demonstrated that the wall can be climbed with handmade ladders and rope. And most of the hard narcotics that enter the United States via Mexico pass through official border crossings, hidden in vehicles and among cargo, not through the remote areas where Trump’s new barriers are being erected.

Trump’s border wall, vulnerable to flash floods, needs large storm gates left open for months – The Washington Post

so much winning…..