End of Flood

Yesterday I showed you this marker at fifty feet. As you see, the water came up a couple more feet, just enough to drown the "50" mark. Luckily, this is as high as it rose.

Remember that road along the river over which I drove yesterd? I showed you how close the river was coming to the pavement.  The next morning, The road had become impassible.

This man decided to abandon the roads, altogether, in order to try out his kayak.  

I don't think I would be boating on that river. The currents are strong and there is much debris rushing along with the water.

Over the winter, old trees have fallen along the river banks, or into small streams that feed the river. When the water comes up during a flood, it washes these trunks and limbs down stream. It also washes trash into the river. Plastic doesn't degrade so through the years it builds up along river banks, left by people who haven't responsibly disposed of it or blown in through the year.

If the kayaker hadn't wanted his boat, he could possibly have chosen to ride a bike, though any bikers would probably need a snorkel.

As would car passengers on this road.  I doubt anyone was driving at  35 miles per hour here, today, along the Muskingum River.  This spot is very close to where the Muskingum empties into the Ohio River. On the left side of the photo is the Marietta College boat house, used to house their crew shells.

Nearby is a picnic shelter will not be hosting any picnics this week.

The Kiwanis Club used a mill stone as its marker.  The stone will have no trouble surviving the high water.

We drove back across the Muskingum to see how the River Museum was faring.

A couple Canada geese became tourists for the day. This one is chasing after his wife who has floated on ahead. Perhaps she wanted to check out the "Tour of Marietta" described on the board at left.

The Ohio River Museum is home to the paddle wheel boat, The W.P. Snyder as well as a reconstructed flatboat.  Flatboats were used to move early pioneers down the river into the frontier.  All a family's belongings could be loaded onto the boat and once it reached its destination, the boat could even be taken apart and reused to build a shelter for that same family or sold or traded if the family was moving on westward. This one usually sits on dry land but is being tested today.

Our touring geese continued to enjoy the museum's displays such as an old paddlewheel.

To put this flood into perspective take a look at the poles below. The top of each pole is the level at which previous floods reached.  The tallest pole marks the 1913 flood, The 1937 flood covered 46% of Marietta and, according to the Museum's web page, put the city's business district under up to sixteen feet of water.  While very inconvenient to businesses and homes with water inside, our flood, this weekend, was just a baby compared to that one and one in 1884 when steamboats unloaded passengers into third-floor windows.

The community garden is receiving a new layer of river silt.

Owners of this party-house on/in the river will have to do some scrubbing before doing any entertaining. Hopefully there was not damage to the structure of the home.

Izzy's snack bar is also going to be a mess.

You can see it better from the Williamstown, WV side of the river. The snack bar is built to look like a paddlewheel boat but today it looks like a boat that has sunk.

This flood ended not being as too bad though you might disagree if you are someone whose home or business filled with muddy water. Though it drizzled some yesterday, the river is rapidly going down. Of course, the river is still not very enjoyable . . .

Unless you are a duck.