I was watching the news last night. They were again reporting on the flooding in the U.S. Midwest. The stock video of citizens stuffing sand into bags and piling them up around the house was on screen when I thought to myself, sandbags have really stood the test of time, eh?!

I did some research and the familiar image of the burlap sack stuffed with sand goes back at least as far as the Revolutionary War - when they were used to build makeshift forts - and they have long been deployed as a defense against rising flood waters.

In this day and age where most things have been improved over the years, the sandbags are still in use just like they were decades ago. The only real improvement has been in the bags themselves, instead of burlap it's now some kind of plastic material. You'd have to think over the years someone stopped shoveling sand into a bag to say, "there's got to be a better way!!" There isn't.