Last post on this subject

[plonq]

Unless there are some significant new developments, this will be my last post on the flood situation here because I don't want to sound like a broken record. atara and I have obsessed about it a bit here because we're at the heart of it. The pictures that we have posted are mostly unimpressive ones from the park up our street. While the river is pretty impressive to see in person, you have to remember that our exposure to this flood is from inside the aegis of the floodway.


This is north of the city. Rail and road are completely cut off for some areas. If you look close, you can still see the river's usual channel.

I think this is the town of Morris, south of the city. A number of the smaller towns have surrounded themselves with ring dikes, and at times like this are only accessible by boat.

It is easy to understand why some of the farmers feel a bit isolated during flood season. Two weeks ago, this was dry prairie with a river running through it, now locals have dubbed it "The Red Sea".

This, and a series of permanent dikes along the south edge of town are all that stands between us and disaster. If these gates ever failed, they estimate that around 475,000 homes could be damaged or destroyed.

Comments

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

Wow.

And this happens every year?

[atara.livejournal.com]

No, this is unusual. This is the same flood that Fargo was fighting at the end of March; we're downstream from them.

There's usually some minor flooding in the spring, but sometimes Nature conspires against us.

[amarafox.livejournal.com]

Holy flood, batman!

[orleans.livejournal.com]

That's quite incredible. Looks just as bad as 1997 from these pictures. :/

[plonq.livejournal.com]

This one is now officially the second worst flood on record, but to put things into scale, the 1997 flood still dwarfs this one.

[fuzzytoedcollie.livejournal.com]

That's...a *lot* of water!
Egads.

[plonq.livejournal.com]

We typically get flooding here every spring, but usually not on this scale. We had a very wet summer and autumn, so the ground was saturated going into winter. Then we had a very long, cold winter with above average snowfall. As the snow melts, and the ground remains frozen, the water has nowhere else to go but into the river - which can only hold so much water.

What we are seeing is a combination of the river overflowing its banks, and a lot of what they call "over land" flooding caused by frozen culverts, and tributaries that can't handle the inflow from the melting snow.

The reason we haven't seen the same level of damage as we did in 1997 (besides the fact that 1997 was a worse flood) is that a lot of the towns raised the levels of their ring dikes after 1997. Most of the damage that we have seen so far this year has been the result of ice dams on the river, causing its level to surge 4-5 feet in an hour, catching people before unprepared.

[cozycabbage.livejournal.com]

I remember taking walks through the property up north, during the summer, and waiting for the water level to go down. There was ONE day in the entire year where a certain puddle dried up to the bottom. I think it was at that point where the mosquitoes magically disappeared for about a week. It was the best week all summer.

[mwalimu.livejournal.com]

This, and a series of permanent dikes along the south edge of town are all that stands between us and disaster. If these gates ever failed, they estimate that around 475,000 homes could be damaged or destroyed.

That's almost as bad as the situation in New Orleans, where a series of dikes are the only thing that keeps that from... Wait a minute, that did happen in 2005. Never mind.

[plonq.livejournal.com]

One difference between here and New Orleans is that the government here actually put some money into expanding the flood protection system. After the scare in 1997, they decided that we should be better prepared in case an even worse flood came along.

Interestingly enough they put the finishing touches on it this past fall (ahead of schedule, and under budget - not something you typically expect to hear about a govt project), never expecting to see it thoroughly tested the following spring.