I had planned to use the Mississippi River Flood of 2011 for my “Water” challenge, but was late in getting it posted. By the time I had a chance to put it together, the next week’s challenge came out — and it was “Numbers” — very convenient for me, since numbers were already a major part of the “Water” challenge!
My daughter and I have laughed about how so many of our recent blog posts have had to do with weather — but there’s been so much of it lately — and to the extremes!
At various times in our married life, my husband and I have lived in quite a few places along the lower end of the Mississippi River. We have family and friends who were threatened by flooding, and we kept up with the river levels — sometimes several times a day. On the other extreme, we’re living in Texas now and are experiencing ‘exceptional drought conditions’ in our area. We’ve all wished that we could take away some of the water that was flooding the people east of us and bring it to our area to help keep our vegetation alive!
Anyway, I want to share some cell-phone photos taken by a friend of ours at the City Waterfront in Vicksburg, MS. You can click on each photo to see it full-size.
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This photo was taken from the river side of the levee on 04/30/2011. The water is already high, but hasn’t yet reached the flood wall. Behind the wall is downtown Vicksburg. In the background, you can see the Old Train Depot located downtown.
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This is another shot from inside the levee. These are Corps of Engineers markings of the various high-water levels of the past. I added to my photo an approximate marking of where the record level reached this year.
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I think this is a photo from one of the casino parking lots — tree tops can be seen peeking out of the water — this gives you some idea of how much higher than normal the water was on 04/30. The river is MUCH wider during flood stage than it is most of the year.
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This picture was taken on 05/22/2011, just a few days after the crest was reached. It was taken from the ‘downtown’ side of the flood wall. The river at this point is well up behind the wall; the entire power of the Mighty Mississippi is pushing with tremendous force against these boards — a rather sobering thought for anyone standing in this place! The wall is constructed of timbers, installed between sets of steel uprights you see in the picture — and tarred together. Water is seeping through in spots and is being pumped out of the street and back over the flood wall into the river.
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The photo below (borrowed with permission from the Internet) was taken before the river crested, but you can see how the Old Depot (see first photo), which was undergoing extensive renovations, is already flooded. Remember that this is outside the levee system, in the lower part of the downtown area of Vicksburg. It will give you an idea how much the water rose after the earlier photos were taken. This is from a collection by photographer Marty Kittrell of Vicksburg. You can click on his picture to go to his blog, where you will see many more very professional photographs of the flooding and other scenes around Vicksburg. I highly recommend Marty’s blog to you; I follow it regularly, and some of you might be interested in doing that, too.
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Many people in states all along the Mississippi River have had their lives disrupted by the massive flooding, and many families are suffering the loss of homes and possessions, crops and livelihood. However, the good news is that the mainline levees held — which spared extreme devastation that could have occurred to highly populated urban areas.
I’ll leave you with a picture we took a couple of weeks ago from the Mississippi Welcome Center in Vicksburg. The water was still fairly high, but the crest had passed. The Interstate 20 bridge is to the left (south) in this photo. The old bridge, to the north, is a cantilever bridge that now carries one rail line across the river. We have stopped at the Welcome Center many times, but this is the first time I’ve been able to get pictures of a train coming across the river!
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