Finally, a Flood Report

Well, there are number of reasons I haven’t posted in a couple of weeks, the first being that the Riverwalk was underwater for the better part of a week and off limits for most of another week. Therefore, I was forced to walk on higher ground -- something I occasionally need to do anyway, ya know?

Other reasons I haven’t posted in a while include the fact that my camera died, my computer died, and I was majorly tied up at work. But I won’t moan and groan about all that. Let’s just say that I’m back up and postin’.

Back to the flood – It was a decent one – not the worst I’ve seen, but it did keep us entertained for a while. It certainly brought folks down to the River! I can’t get over how many folks seem to totally ignore the River until she “acts up.” Our ‘hood was overrun with people down here to take a look at the high water.

Here's a photo to give you an idea of how high the water got:


And here's another -- Look for the faint white line about halfway up the bank. That's a line of litter -- styrofoam cups and the like -- and it indicates how high the water got:


From what I’ve seen, the Riverwalk withstood the flood pretty well, as it’s designed to do. The newspaper said that there’s half a million dollars’ worth of damage to be repaired. I have no concept of repair figures, but I do see some damage that needs attention – mainly riverbank wash-outs in places. The city set about making repairs on the downtown portion of the Riverwalk the minute the water subsided, filling in wash-outs and sweeping up mud residue.

Here's a photo of one bit of damage:


I expected there to be lots of “remainderings,” but on my first post-flood venture I was surprised to see that in fact the flood had swept away most of the “bank trash.” Here is one remaindering that I did find and liked a lot:



By far the most prevalent remaindering, though, is a “dusty residue.”



And that dusty residue is one of the main reasons I wasn’t overly eager to get back onto the Riverwalk before we had a good rain. You see, I have this first cousin who’s a right renowned figure in the field of water quality. He’s a professor of chemical engineering, and he goes all over the world teaching and presenting papers on water quality. Well, back in 1994 when the Flint River staged its historically unprecedented flood, we had an elderly aunt and uncle who lost everything to those raging waters. Their lakeside home was swept off its foundation, and for several days all their belongings were submerged in about eight feet of water. After the flood subsided, a bunch of us cousins went down to help salvage what we could of our aunt and uncle’s household. The authorities had issued all sorts of warnings about how contaminated the remaining water might be – how we should wear rubber gloves, stay out of the water if we had open sores and wounds, get tetanus shots in case of injury – that sort of thing. And we Hall cousins dutifully obeyed all those warnings. At one point, though, we all decided to walk across a large patch of what was left of the lawn, which had been underwater a few days earlier, but which by now was dry and covered in a “dusty residue.” As we were walking, chemist cousin and I pulling up the rear, I remember his saying, “What we’re kickin’ up and breathin’ right here is at least as dangerous as anything we’ve touched today, contaminated water included.” And that gave me pause as to dusty residue left after a flood.

I will add that for several days during last week’s Chattahoochee flood, Fred and I noted a strong aroma of … well, sewage.