Post by Azurerana on Mar 23, 2008 12:20:49 GMT -5
Don't know if anyone here was concerned, but the Meramec River in my hometown is in the process of receding, finally. We only had 6 inches (15 cm) of rain in 36 hours; but upstream of us, the totals were more like 10-12 inches (35-40 cm). Rains come down, river goes up. Along the stream length, this was between the 2nd to 4th largest flood in the period of official record (from 1915). River which is usually 3-10 ft (1-3m) in depth reached 30 to 40 ft (10 to 12m) along its length and was out of banks for between 3 and 4 days, (the lowest part crested today at its Mississippi River confluence).
It's been great fun (sigh!) with sandbaggers, media people going nutso and energetically dishing out inaccurate info, etc. On Friday, I was reduced to using an old county road to get to an appointment, as all the connector state roads were flooded. The river lapped at Interstate 44 (main US route Chicago to near Los Angeles) through Missouri. The road was shut down near the town of Jerome for a while with water over the road; and for the last two days, our transportation dept. has been barricading and sandbagging the road at Eureka (old dioxin Superfund site, now a state park) and Valley Park.
Valley Park is an interesting case. When I was a child, it was truly a valley, and I-44 was elevated far above river level. Since then, that town has build a levee, and a nearby unincorporated area did so as well. The latter levee breached on Thursday, flooding a trash landfill (Actually, it is a trash ziggurat, not a fill of anything. Why put a trash landfill in a floodplain? Um, I'm not on a P&Z board... Also, as suburbanization has moved out, many businesses have located right along the highway, all on fill up to 20 ft. higher, so now, the interstate is the lowest structure in the couple of miles between a hill gap, and the next upgrade on the road.
In the last couple of days, MoDOT has worked frantically to barricade and sandbag both directional lanes of the interstate, turning it into a full-sized Hot Wheels track. Although a good idea if successful, it could be disastrous if the barricades were breached. Luckily, the crests turned out to be 2 to 4 ft (.7 to 1.2m) lower than predicted. The interstate barricades weren't needed, but thankfully so.
I got some really neat photos of the flooding in town from the top of a city park which is a former sandstone mine. All the flooding was south of the RR tracks. Old US 66 through town was flooded. We're north of the tracks, but about a mile away from and 100 ft higher than river level, so our only threat was to our sanity trying to figure out what routes to take to get places. Today we went to my mother-in-law's place, and drove I-44, camera in hand, and also got some good photos of the river, which stretched for at least a mile over the low lying state park.
Come Monday or Tuesday at the latest, the cleanup begins.
It's been great fun (sigh!) with sandbaggers, media people going nutso and energetically dishing out inaccurate info, etc. On Friday, I was reduced to using an old county road to get to an appointment, as all the connector state roads were flooded. The river lapped at Interstate 44 (main US route Chicago to near Los Angeles) through Missouri. The road was shut down near the town of Jerome for a while with water over the road; and for the last two days, our transportation dept. has been barricading and sandbagging the road at Eureka (old dioxin Superfund site, now a state park) and Valley Park.
Valley Park is an interesting case. When I was a child, it was truly a valley, and I-44 was elevated far above river level. Since then, that town has build a levee, and a nearby unincorporated area did so as well. The latter levee breached on Thursday, flooding a trash landfill (Actually, it is a trash ziggurat, not a fill of anything. Why put a trash landfill in a floodplain? Um, I'm not on a P&Z board... Also, as suburbanization has moved out, many businesses have located right along the highway, all on fill up to 20 ft. higher, so now, the interstate is the lowest structure in the couple of miles between a hill gap, and the next upgrade on the road.
In the last couple of days, MoDOT has worked frantically to barricade and sandbag both directional lanes of the interstate, turning it into a full-sized Hot Wheels track. Although a good idea if successful, it could be disastrous if the barricades were breached. Luckily, the crests turned out to be 2 to 4 ft (.7 to 1.2m) lower than predicted. The interstate barricades weren't needed, but thankfully so.
I got some really neat photos of the flooding in town from the top of a city park which is a former sandstone mine. All the flooding was south of the RR tracks. Old US 66 through town was flooded. We're north of the tracks, but about a mile away from and 100 ft higher than river level, so our only threat was to our sanity trying to figure out what routes to take to get places. Today we went to my mother-in-law's place, and drove I-44, camera in hand, and also got some good photos of the river, which stretched for at least a mile over the low lying state park.
Come Monday or Tuesday at the latest, the cleanup begins.
