Residents of Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick have been deploying sandbags to help cope with the flooding that's been taking place for the past week. But flooding researchers and consultants say sandbags aren't necessarily the best solution. They say the sacks can be very effective in flash floods or other situations where they won't be in contact with water for too long. But they say sandbags lose their effectiveness as soon as they become saturated with water, meaning they have limited impact during prolonged floods. The experts also say sandbags are resource intensive, since they require lots of people to assemble and stack them, and they wind up clogging landfills once floodwaters recede. But the experts recognize that sandbags provide a cheap, do-it-yourself solution that can help rally a community during a stressful time. They say there are more effective flood-prevention tools on the market, almost all of which are more expensive than sandbags. Alternatives include aquadams, which are rubber tubes that fill with the floodwaters and wind up creating a reusable, more long-lasting barrier.