Monday, May 2, 2011

Mississippi River flood.

Today Mr. Confident & I went on a little adventure of sorts. It was raining a ridiculous amount of rain (I dunno maybe five inches in one day?), and the Mississippi River is steadily rising. It is supposed to crest at 48 feet in a week, and the last time this happened was during the Flood of 1937. Well seeing as we weren't around in 1937, and this is being broadcast as one of those historical kind of deals...we thought we'd go look at it. In the middle of the pouring rain. With a five month old. And a not so good camera. While I tried to take pictures from a moving vehicle.

Yes, my friends. These are some cherished memories. "Micah, when you were five months old, your father and I drove you out in the monsoons so we could get swept away by flood waters while you napped in the back of the truck."

It was an absolute brilliant plan, I tell you.

At any rate, these pictures are HORRIBLE. I mean it. Horrible. I'm not even gonna pretend they are some good pictures because they are not. However, you might get an idea of how high the water is from the pictures. At least, it is enough for us to remember The Great Flood of 2011 by in any case. (If you want some really good overhead pictures go here. This will give you a much better idea of what it looks like here.)

On with the pics! My bad ones.

First, we were going to go down by the river, but we quickly discovered everything is closed off because it is so high. Roads are flooded or closed in downtown Memphis, so we decided to drive into Arkansas instead.

Headed into AR. Bottom right is Mud Island.

On the "new bridge" crossing into Arkansas.

Looking back towards Memphis/Mud Island

Still on the bridge.

Ok, now we are no longer on a bridge. We're on elevated interstate where fields are usually below, but obviously....it is still river.

Just look how high the water is from the guardrail. It's very close to coming on up.

That'd be trees that are usually in the middle of a field surrounded by water.


The point of this picture is to show the sign on the side of the road and how the water is covering the side. Imagine your interstate having water surrounding interstate signs.

ALSO note the camper that somehow got flooded out on the road below.

Now this is where the elevated highway gets lower, but look at how close the water is to the road. And it is going to continue to spread out daily.

It keeps taking over the trees!


At this point, we had turned around to head back to Memphis.

Elevated highway usually above fields & pastures, but notice how high the water is! It is hard to see, but there is also a train bridge that is going across the water in the middle of the trees.

I told you the pics were horrible, didn't I?


This is coming into Memphis, about to enter the "new bridge."


This is how high the river had come to the roads. I mean, you can see it lapping up where the road had been closed.

2 comments:

  1. Mom (CSH) said that the Army Corps of Engineers and other authorities were trying to discourage people from undertaking such sight-seeing missions:-P

    Sorry I have yet to return your phone calls (after you took a week to return mine:-) I have a paper deadline on Friday. Boo. :-(

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  2. BTW, I am always willing to make exceptions for you and really appreciate the results--however fuzzy--of this particular sight-seeing mission:-)

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