Imagine a place where you can stand and watch every drop of groundwater from every stream and every snow capped mountain from the Continental Divide to the west, Canada to the North, and parts of Texas to the south, float right past you, just a few inches under your feet. You can stand on the banks of the Missouri River, about a 1/2 mile from this keyboard and see that most every day. Sometimes I do that, go down to the Big River and just gaze at it for awhile. It's fun to stand down on the bank of the mighty MO and imagine where that water flowing past you right now was just a a few hours, few days, a few weeks, or even a few months ago. Hi there, water from North Dakota! Hey there, little drops from Steamboat Springs, Colorado! Oh, look -- there's some water that was way up in Montana a few weeks ago....and, oh sweet Jesus, is that some detritus from that awful tornado in Greensburg, Kansas the other day? Hmmm, suddenly this is not all good and happy water, is it? Yikes, there's someone's rain gutter ripped from a house in Topeka during their floods last week. Geez, I hope they're okay...
Well, today the River's running a bit high and you can't stand there, exactly, but there it all is, all that water and all the stuff ripped from people's lives during those horrible storms upstream. And sometimes all that water doesn't stay in the river but kind of fills up and spills over like a giant flowing bathtub moving along at 275,000 cu ft. per second. Then, all the little streams and creeks and all of the other great big rivers that empty into it just sort of stop moving forward and start backing up; it's kind of like watching an overstuffed toilet slowly rising to the top of the bowl only you don't have a plunger to make it stop.
Out in the middle of the Big River, it's pretty dangerous. The current in the main channel right now can top 14 knots and there's a lot of big stuff -- trees, propane tanks, pieces of barns and things -- zooming by. Not a good place to float around taking pictures. But just off the river, on all of those tributary creeks and streams, the brown, muddy water is very still and it just slowly rises... like a pond that keeps coming up. You can actually sit at the edge and watch it move, millimeter by millimeter. Stand at the edge for an hour and suddenly your realize, Hey! My feet are wet!
Meanwhile, if it weren't such a hassle to get around in it, it would be almost pretty in some places, like along our creekside farm road on the way out to the blacktop highway and civilization:
Right now the river level near here is at about 28 feet, or about five feet over "flood stage." So on Saturday, when it's yet another 3.5 feet higher, the water in our creek should be just below where I was standing while taking that photograph.
Big River floods are "slow motion disasters." They are different than what most people think about when they think of floods; unless a big levee breaks, there isn't a lot of roaring water splintering trees and washing cars down embankments and stuff. We have those kinds of flash floods, too, of course and then you just stay the hell away from the creek for a few hours. But during Big River floods, all that loud, rushing, crashing disaster stuff has already happened way upstream right after those big heavy rains. No, the Big River just silently collects all of that water from all those other fast moving disasters and just holds on to it, swelling and swelling and swelling until none of the downstream creeks and rivers have any place to put their water and finally it has nowhere to go but... well, up and out over the countryside.
At this moment the USGS has lowered its Missouri River flood crest estimate predicted for Saturday at Jefferson City, MO to 31.7 feet. That's great news compared to what they were saying as late as yesterday (34.5 feet!). That would have been a very, very serious flood. 31.7 is nothing to sneeze at, but it's a LOT more manageable than 34+!!
Here's a terrific website from the USGS with which you can check stats from the Missouri River at the Jefferson City, MO tracking station just a few miles downstream from my place. Click around, there are lots of cool tools. You can also use it to view tracking and measuring sites from all over the country.
Here's a view from the boat looking back at the spot where I took the first pic:
... And finally, of course, the constant, faithful, intrepid swamp dog who's always at my side no matter what the weather (she is the one family member really enjoying all of this):
At our place floods are sort of a hassle. We have leave time to hike and boat for a mile or so to get out to the road, can't ever come home after dark (tried it once back in 1993, hit a tree with the canoe... not a good scene), and getting groceries in and out while keeping everything clean and dry can be bit of a pain. But that's about it.
For others around here, especially those in the small Missouri river towns like Hartsburg these slow motion river rises can be tragic for homes and property. Most of the river bottom corn crop was planted in the past few weeks and that will be a total loss. But the real heartbreak is when peoples' homes and businesses get swallowed up so slowly, so inexorably, so inevitably, so strangely silently... and all you can do is watch.
Volunteers are sandbagging the levee down there right now; we get 6 hours on, 12 hours off and I'm not due back until about noon. Some people over 50 get to drive tractors and stuff instead of filling, lifting, heaving, passing, or stacking the 50 lb bags all day long. I may wimp out and do the tractor thing today. Someone seems to have stolen the back I used to have and replaced it with this counterfeit one that hurts more often now.
If the flood stage really stays below 32 feet, most of Hartsburg and most of the other little burgs along Big Muddy will be okay. If it starts raining hard again anywhere in the region in the next 24 to 48 hours... well, we'll keep you posted. There will be plenty of time to think about all that water we're trying to keep from stopping in to visit us... all that water we want to keep just floating on by downstream... and where it's been before it was here... and all whose lives it may already have touched.. or even ended, connected as we all are, by the water... all that fucking water.