High Water

After work yesterday I walked out onto Eads Bridge to have a look at the river level. Pretty high, although I've seen worse. 

A look at the first picture in Wednesday's post, shot five days earlier, will give you an idea of the change. Note the position of the ramp to the helicopter barge. The bases of the lampposts are usually far above the water. That's a street to the right of them. The water has come well up into the Arch park. There is so much water, flowing so quickly, that it creates turbulence and whirlpools after it passes the legs of the bridge.

The rivers should start dropping today as we enter a gorgeous, sunny weekend. A couple of big events to shoot today.           

Flotsam

This is the edge of the Mississippi last Saturday afternoon. The river level is normally much lower. The old cobblestone levee, now underwater, is used for parking. These days driftwood floats downstream and washes up on the shore.

That was then. We had torrents of rain for the rest of the weekend. I had some business in Illinois yesterday and as I drove back to this side I could see that the water level was well over the base of the flagpoles in the upper right of the top photo. Maybe a 3 or 4 meter rise in three days.

The major highways that approach St. Louis from the south and southwest are closed due to flooding. Tuesday was sunny but at least 3 inches / 7.5 cm of rain are predicted for today and tomorrow. We may float away.      

Leftovers

There were a few other good photos from my walk around the riverfront as the flood waters subsided. Many patterns in this one. Taken from the platform of the MetroLink station on the river's edge in East St. Louis.                

Final Mop Up

The water level in our local rivers is dropping fast. The photo above shows the stairs under the arch that go down to the street (at the level of the bases of the streetlamps, still under water here), and then to a small street at the top of the cobblestone levee, and then a way further down to the Mississippi. The stairs have two landings. You can see the light horizontal band of the top landing and the lower one just above water level. The river was in between the two last week.

The bottom pic is the same railroad trestle as in Sunday's post with a lot more open air beneath it.

My memory, always questionable, is that the water covered the top landing during the great flood of 1993. This old photo shows it just about there.                       

Wet Suburbia

The intersection of Interstate 44 and State Highway 141 in suburban Valley Park always goes under water in the heaviest rains. The Meramec River, mentioned earlier in this series, is a short distance behind the Interstate. 141 runs down into a trough that is badly engineered and fills up from time to time. However, I can never remember 44, a major road, being closed by flooding. Part of it to the left of the frame runs low and next to the river. It was awash a few days ago.

The peak was on Thursday, December 31. These pictures were taken on Saturday, when the water level was much lower.                   

Low Clearance

These pictures were taken on Thursday, December 31. The water is falling here but rising downstream.

Note the railroad trestle with the sign indicating 12 feet, 2 inches clearance to the street below. I estimate it is about 2 feet (0.6 meter) above the water here. (The track actually runs beneath the Arch grounds.)  The street is what's underwater in the second photo from yesterday's post. The river is usually far down the levee below the street.

The bottom picture shows how far the flood got up what used to be the foot of Washington Avenue into the north end of the Arch grounds work.                

Lotta Water

St. Louis got between 5 and 10 inches of rain (13 - 25 cm) of rain while we were away, depending on the exact location.  Some out of town friends have expressed concern for our safety. Not to worry. The only areas affected were along the Mississippi and a local tributary, the Meramec.  There is a good selection of photos on our local newspaper's web site here.

My office is close to Big Muddy so I took a walk out onto Eads Bridge for a look. It's hard to understand how high the water is from the first picture. However, below, there is a street between the light poles and flood wall, with sidewalks on either side. Under normal conditions, there is a good stretch of cobblestone levee sloping down to the left.

Got a few more views to come.                

Thursday Arch Series

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The Mississippi is dropping now. It will be below official flood stage at St. Louis by Saturday. Downstream, though, around the junction of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, the flood is breaking all records.

This is what it looked like along the Arch grounds last Sunday. The row of little dots in the bottom-center shows the top of concrete bollards that mark the border between the sidewalk and cobblestone levee. The water is usually way to the left of that.

Sorry for the lack of comments yesterday. I had a bunch of printing to do when I got home from work, stuff for a group show I'm in that opens in a week, a couple of things for a charity auction and a copy of the header from Downtown St. Louis 365 for The Partnership for Downtown St. Louis. Busy, busy, busy.

Downtown St. Louis 365 observes that the flood is fascinating to everyone.

On Guard For Thee

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No, obviously not Canada and there's no maple leaf on that flag. Once again we visit with Brad, whom we first met in the post of December 9, 2010. He's there, standing just like this, dressed just like that, every Sunday from 10 to 4, rain, snow or sun, until the Lord tells him otherwise. He's usually down around that tent, something of a stage area when it's not inundated, facing the Arch. During the flood he stands on the stairs below the monument facing the river, as if guarding it from the forces of evil. See Psalms 12:7-8.

On a similar theme, Downtown St. Louis 365 adresses the sacred and the profane.

More Water. Lots More Water.

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The Mighty Mississippi rises again. The average water's edge is somewhere around the gray stone pier of Eads Bridge beyond the archway. The dots in the foreground are the top of concrete bollards at the side of the last city street before the cobblestone levee. Note the barge struggling upstream against the enormous flow.

There was a particularly sad consequence of this spring's floods last night. Downriver from here at the junction of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers is the sad little town of Cairo, Illinois (locally pronounced KAY-row). Once a booming river junction, it is now a poor, tattered village of 3,200. The levee is about to fail, after which the river would engulf the town. The U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, which manages the levees, has chosen to literally blow up a section of levee nearby on the Missouri side of the river (map here), inundating 130,000 acres / 53,000 hectares of flat farmland and about 300 homes. This will take the pressure off the Cairo levee and save the town. Yesterday, the U. S. Supreme Court rejected a request for an emergency restraining order. Mid-day Tuesday update with photos of the levee breach in the local newspaper here. Dire choices.

There is another illustration of this on Downtown St. Louis 365.

Thursday Arch Series

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This was taken last Sunday, when the Mississippi was at the very edge of flood. It's rained much of this week - all day yesterday - and my best guess is that the river is 1 or 1.5 m higher now. I'll have a look on Saturday.

Severe tornadoes have raged across the central and southern US for several days. When I was driving home from work last night, I heard a news bulletin that a large tornado had just passed through Birmingham, Alabama. That's the home of one of our favorite colleagues, Virginia of Birmingham Daily Photo. I sent her an email asking if she was okay, not knowing if she had electricity. She wrote back quickly and said that she was; the storm had hit across town . Whew. Check her blog today. She may have a tornado picture.

Downtown St. Louis 365 is looking for love in all the wrong places.

Oh No, Not Again

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The Mississippi is within a hair's breadth of flood again. Most of the world has heard about the tornado that ripped across the northern suburbs Friday night and smashed up the airport (and thanks to the several readers who sent emails asking if we were okay. We are.) But it has also rained hard for days and days. Flash flood warnings are common. This is the street under the Arch by the river. You can't see a boundary between the land and water. They are about level with one another. A crest of five feet above flood stage is predicted late this week. We'll see.

We're doing a human sized gerbil wheel today on Downtown St. Louis 365.

Catch breath. Rest index finger.

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Yesterday, of course, was Saturday. I did not take one single photograph. Maybe I'm not such a junkie after all. I did some household chores in the morning, including moving the family financial data from Quicken on our old coal-powered Windows computer to the iMac we got last Christmas. (About time, but Quicken for Mac is terrible so I had to put Windows on the new Mac first. That makes sense, doesn't it?) Then I went to the office and got some overdue paperwork done. So it's back to the archives. Actually, this was from just last weekend. The shadow of the Arch makes a spotlight effect on the overlook and stage that's usually just across the street.

No photos, but last night's production at Opera Theatre of St. Louis was Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. It's a work I scarcely know. Lush melody as you would expect from the composer but O.M.G., the plot makes La Bohème seem like an episode of the Three Stooges. It could be subtitled People Keep Doing Mean, Stupid Things To One Another, This Time In Russia. But if it weren't for such behavior. how could we have opera?

For Submarines, Maybe

Big Muddy roils at the edge of the city. Your automobile insurance company would discourage you from doing this but it's okay with the car wash (if you can get the vehicle that far). The river is only about 3.5 feet or barely over a meter above flood stage and should start to drop now. Still, this is not exactly a vibrant metropolis and we get our thrills where we can.

Going Up

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The Mississippi is rising again. On Saturday it covered Lenore Sullivan Boulevard and the first couple of steps to up to the Arch. The dark area on the water is the shadow of the Arch itself.

This is small change, though, by historical standards. The sign high up the post in the second picture is hard to read here but the red stripe is the high water mark of the great flood of 1993. Long way to go.

Here We Go Again

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And on a couple of levels. Back home now, trying to return to the routine. But the Mississippi is rising again, just covering the riverside street below the Arch and heading higher. You might want to do your biking in a waterproof suit.

Water, Water Everywhere

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We are not having dangerous flooding along the Mississippi so far this year. Still, it's pretty dramatic to look at. In the top photo, the water is usually way beyond the arches in the yellow stone part of Eads Bridge. Below is a photo from inside a garage on the street that runs along the river. The water level is normally well beyond the chain fence in the mid-ground. I haven't checked the flood forecast for a few days but if the river goes up much I'll be back this weekend.

By the way, a sure sign of spring - yesterday I had to do another of those two-hours drives for a court appearance. It was the first day in many months my windshield got bug-spattered.

FREE CAR WASH AFTER EXIT

TOMORROW: CDP monthly theme day, red. Think outside the box.

The Sun Doesn't Shine Over Forest Park

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Still overcast this weekend. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, someone said. When the sky gives you weird light, make B&W HDRs. Hey, I actually made the effort to use a tripod on this one.

SPECIAL UPDATE: MERIWETHER LEWIS' AIR SUPPLY

Not looking good.

O Parking

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Happy St. Patrick's day to our Irish friends and fellow members of the Irish diaspora. I can't resist a really bad joke.

But really, you shouldn't park here. Not unless your car is amphibious. Most of the area in this picture is a driving lane atop a levee made of heavy cobblestones that gradually slopes into the river. It's used for public parking most of the year. Not this week. If the Mississippi hits the street behind the fence on the right, it's officially at flood stage. This picture was taken last Sunday afternoon. I have not had time go back and check the water level.

TOMORROW: Thursday Arch Series.

A Whole Lot of Water

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How much water does the Mississippi carry past St. Louis each day? I'm sure someone has calculated this but I couldn't even guess. Of course, it varies with the stage of the river and now, near flood level, the amount must be very great. That's the Martin Luther King Bridge on the left and the Eads Bridge on the right. And that is a buoy on the lower left, not some kind of fish jumping up.

One of the environmental controversies in this area is about the channelization of the great rivers. The Missouri and Mississippi are lined by high levees along much of their routes. These are meant to protect the towns and farms flanking them but, by holding the rivers back from their natural flood plains, make the inundation much worse when a levee ruptures or in places without this system. One of my occasional readers, river.relief, is an expert in this stuff. Maybe he can tell us more.

TOMORROW: a very tenuous connection to St. Patrick's Day.