Thursday Arch Series

The series has been sparsely populated during the extensive renovation of the Arch grounds. (Then there is the issue of finding something new after thousands of shots.) What I should be doing is going across the river to Illinois, shooting the monument in different weather and times of the day. This one was taken from East St. Louis in late afternoon, with some computer razzmatazz added.               

                 

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.                

Photo(s) Of The Year

On New Year's Day City Daily Photo members show off their best picture of the year. I'm a prolific snapper and don't seem to be able to limit myself to one image. As Oscar Wilde said, nothing succeeds like excess. And so:

Favorite picture of the year, and maybe best travel photo - Denali National Park in Alaska on a bleak day.

                             

Best Arch picture. There were not many this year because of the mess from the renovations of the grounds.

Best architecture. 120 Wall Street in New York, where my father worked for most of his career, followed by a club on the edge of downtown STL.

 

 

Best portrait - my friend, the artist Henryk Ptasiewicz.

Best urban landscape - snow in front of the St. Louis Art Museum.

Best flora, at the Missouri Botanical Garden.

Best fauna. Sorry, three way tie. A millipede in a Costa Rican rain forest, rolled up in a defensive position; the koi pond in the Botanical Garden; and a puffin in Seward, Alaska.

 

 

Best travel photo, besides the other ones. Dinner on the beach in Tamarindo, Costa Rica.

Best local shots - the Great Forest Park Balloon Race, followed by dusk on Gravois Avenue.

Best picture of Madeleine. Not so much cute as deep. There is a lot going on behind those eyes.

So happy 2016 to one and all. Oh, and you may have heard that it's been raining a bit here. Pix of the Mississippi tomorrow.

And check the best images of CDP members from around the world here.