Monday, June 7, 2010

Quick Flood Update




I wanted to post one more time about our recent flood. It seems that everywhere I go now to paint I am confronted with "Bridge Out" or "Road Closed" or "Detour" signs. Everywhere. The damage is so widespread it leaves me speechless on most days by the time I get home.
I typically take the Natchez Trace out of Nashville to get to 90% of my painting areas. Leiper's Fork, Fly, Watervalley, Hickman County. There is not one community along the Natchez Trace that has not been gutted. As a plein air painter I spend a lot of time riding the back roads and every low spot or dip in the road or creek or gully I have seen has been completely destroyed. What used to be meandering little creeks are now giant cavernous ravines. And the amount of gravel that has been piled up in yards and on farms is astronomical. Where did all that gravel come from? One of the most shocking sights for me was the Totty's Bend Bridge in Hickman County. I know if you have never seen it it won't have the impact it would for someone familiar but the Totty's Bend Bridge had drift on it! The water actually got over it! I have posted a picture with the river in the distance but I don't think you can tell that that bridge is probably 40 feet from the water! I NEVER thought water could reach that bridge. Yet there it sits, closed, with trash all over it.
I have to say, the road crews have done a very good job getting us back to some sense of normalcy and convenience but I would guess there are areas that will never be the same. It is just a miracle that more people weren't killed.

1 comment:

Gary Keimig said...

We are going through that presently but nothing compared to what you had. It is a nearly yearly event in places around Wyoming with snow melt and sometimes with spring rains. The Dubois area is having our high water runoff as usual and no big deal as it was last year but 75 miles down country they have called out Natl. Guard and lost a bridge south of lander. They had a lot of snow compared to us this year.
Nice blog. some really great paintings.