The Mississippi River crested a week ago and now is slowly slipping back into its banks. This is shot from a bridge crossing the river at Quincy, Illinois.
This photo was taken looking east towards the Mississippi River – its riverbanks are about 5 miles from here. The river came through the levee at Gregory’s Landing on June 19 – 10 days ago – and covered this stretch of farms. Now the water has receded about 50 feet. Usually there are fields of waist high corn on the sides of this road by this time of the summer.
So this is what an sandbagged, earthern levee looks like? And this is supposed to confine the Mighty Mississippi waters? Well, sometimes it really works – this year it was tested and passed the test
The river is supposed to be way on the other side of those trees on the right. You can see how much the Mississippi has receded, though, in just a week’s time. It high water mark can be seen just below the grass that is still green.
Rivers are awesome forces when they’re at flood stage, aren’t they! All of the flat land adjacent to the water is frightening to me.
Comment by montucky — June 30, 2008 @ 7:36 pm
Living along the Ohio River we get scenes like this every few years as well Bo, this year most of the flooding has been in the rivers just to our north.
Comment by Bernie Kasper — July 1, 2008 @ 12:13 am
Interesting shots. More close up and nuts & bolts – less sensational. All reflect the reality of the floods.
Comment by Gandalf — July 1, 2008 @ 7:50 am
Fascinating photos Bo. It is amazing how sand bags can help.
A few years ago during one the hurricanes the river came within a few feet of our porch. It was very scary to look out the window and see white caps a few feet away! Both places I live are islands and that happened on Fleming Island. It has lots of bridges and is a town.
Ironically, Drayton Island where the old house is located is a small island with no bridges, and we are higher there. It is in the mouth of the St Johns and Lake George. Lake George can get very violent and rough..like the ocean too.
Water is a beautiful, powerful, and strange thing…eh?
That is sad about the corn fields…I have heard on the news to expect cost increases in many products connected to corn. Seems, it goes far beyond corn from the grocery store. :O
Thank you for sharing your world through your beautiful and informative photos and words!
Comment by gypsy-heart — July 1, 2008 @ 8:03 am
Those images really tell the story of this flood. I’m glad everything is getting back to normal, or at least as normal as it can get after something like this.
Comment by Chris Osborne — July 2, 2008 @ 9:04 am