...there's gonna be a floody-floody. Lord said to Noah, there's gonna be a floody-floody. Get my children (clap!) out of the muddy-muddy, children of the Lord. Hopefully you know that song and could hear the melody as you read it. If you don't know recognize that first verse then maybe you at least know the chorus:
So rise and shine and give God the glory-glory. Rise and shine and give God the glory-glory. Rise and shine and (clap!) give God the glory-glory, children of the Lord.
I will officially have that song stuck in my head for the rest of the night now. While we should always remember to give God the glory (glory), the point right now is that there's gonna be a floody (floody). At least in our neck of the woods, anyway.
I'm sure you've all heard or read by now that the Mighty Mississippi is getting even mightier. The water levels have been steadily increasing over the last couple of weeks and we are within days, if not hours, of it reaching it's peak. The big question is will the flood wall and levee hold? For the sake of my house, I sure as heck hope so.
Doc and I headed out on an early walk this morning. We decided to go check the water levels, as we have just about every day this week, but this time I decided to take my camera. I realize that if you've never seen the areas that I took pictures of without standing it may be hard to visualize just how crazy this is, but I will try my best to explain each picture.
Here's the view as we walked on the upper sidewalk.
See those trees floating in the water over to the right? The river is usually on the other side of them. There's a walking trail that runs on this side of those trees that Doc and I have walked on hundreds of times. We haven't seen that trail in days.
The edge of the flood water is lined with trees and debris. I hope this trash doesn't linger for long once the water finally recedes. I think someone should go ahead and start skimming the edge of the water now.
Last week I saw a man pull two huge catfish out of the water. I'm sure his dinner was good that night, but you couldn't pay me enough to eat something out of this water. It looks grody.
Our island has been closed to thru traffic for a few days now. Last week the number of spectators out gawking at the water was unbelievable, and made the whole neighborhood chaotic. The crowds are smaller now but we're still spotting non-residents out taking pictures. (Though they're hard to spot since residents like me are walking around with our cameras too.)
This picture was taken as we approached the berm on the road. They have closed down one side of the street and built it up even with the grass on the right of it. In this picture it doesn't look like much dirt, but the pile gets bigger further down.
This part of the berm has been sandbagged all along what used to be an entrance to a parking lot.
This is said parking lot. Kinda just looks like a boat ramp now.
Another view of the parking lot.
In this picture you can see the top of the bike rack that sits in the parking lot.
Here's a birdhouse that looks like its about to go under, and right behind it you can see the top of a park bench.
Doc and I walked around to the other side of the island where the Wolf River is. Some homes that back up to the Wolf River have already been evacuated. From the pictures below, you can see why.
To get those pictures I was standing out on a bridge that leads to the boats in the marina. The water was right up to the bridge. The picture below is of the same house as the one above, but this time taken from the back of the house that is still dry. Sandbags have been piled up between each house at the edge of their parking garages and the water is all the way up to the sandbags and seeping through to the parking lot.
I couldn't really tell if any water has actually made it into the houses or not. It's hard to tell with the way they're situated on the hill. They look dry in the back but like they're floating in the front.
The condos across the parking lot from these have taken precaution and sandbagged their parking garages and storage areas.
A camera crew was getting set up at the edge of the water. I'm not sure which news station it was.
Look at all the trash that has been swept up to the shoreline. Isn't it disgusting? Seriously, why isn't anyone out there with a skimmer? Or couldn't it be burned off? That is not going to be pretty when the water recedes.
Not only is the Wolf River bringing us trash, it's also taking over our playgrounds. I've seen some pretty unhappy children peering at their playgrounds covered in water.
The park closest to our house has water (and trash) up to the edge of it but none of the play equipment has gotten wet. It's a good thing, too, because if it were to go under I might have to take a container of Clorox Wipes out there once the water goes down to get all the filth off before our kids play on it. Seriously, the water is so gross!
I suppose if your dog swam out there to use the bathroom, you should still grab a bag and pick up after it.
So that's the latest in our neck of the woods. Please feel free to send up prayers and good vibes for that flood wall to hold firm - I'm kinda fond of my house.