In article <telecom26.187.19@telecom-digest.org>,
ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu says:
> A couple weeks ago, I mentioned 'when it rains, it pours' in discussing
> my personal financial crises, but this time around, it has more to do
> with the actual _weather_ in our town.
> Last week we had several days of hard, heavy rain. Over this past
> weekend we did not need _more rain_ but we got it anyway. Some of
> you probably have read in your newspapers (or heard on television or
> whatever) about the very heavy rains throughout the south and
> southern midwest. The weather service began warning us on Friday to
> expect a lot more rain before it was all over, and indeed we got
> (are still getting) it. Because our town is mostly in a valley
> (although large parts of it are on a hill within that valley) we are
> pretty safe from tornados, but not all that safe from high water and
> floods. Our neighbors to the south, Coffeyville, KS got flooded
> worse than we did here, so far, that is, with about half their town
> under deep water and the rest of it under an inch or so. About 3000
> of the residents of Coffeyville had to be evacuated as a result.
> Here in Independence, we have not as of yet been that
> 'fortunate'. Some of our streets, in lower-laying areas of town
> have been closed, for blocks or so at a time; the most notable
> examples being Second Street from Locust Street north to the Water
> Works, although the houses along there seem to be doing okay; Park
> Blvd (Third Street) closed from Locust north to Ash Street (a
> distance of several blocks past the baseball diamond; Penn Street
> where the viaduct goes under the railroad tracks north side of town,
> 10th Street from City Limits south to near Dearing, Kansas, most of
> 19th Street with its railroad tracks in that low-lying area. The
> town of Neodesha, KS got clobbered pretty badly from the rain also.
> One oddity, IMO is that the water works in Coffeyville and Neodesha
> are still operating; our water supply here in Independence is off
> for the 'duration'; they just now said on television it is back on,
> but undrinkable without boiling first. When I just now tested it, it
> is on, but just a trickle; I'll give it a coulpe more hours to build
> up the pressure. Well, that's life in our town for this week! PAT
Last summer we got quite a bit of rain here in the northeast. Now
we're not getting enough.
But do recall seeing the Woonasquatucket river overflowing it's banks
last year. Now there's barely six inches of water.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yeah, that is a bummer. Ditto here; a
small creek or tributary of the Vergidris River last summer was mostly
all dried up. That same creek this year has overflowed and completely
flooded South Tenth Street from the south city limits (where it
normally flows docially under a bridge crossing the creek at that
point) to a mile south of that point. Since South Tenth Street at that
point is also Highway 75, police on the south side of the flooded area
are sending everyone down past the college to Seventeenth Street and
up to Poplar Street then back east to Tenth. We cannot even manage to
get a _good flood_ here it seems! Just here and there around town a
few viaducts and bridge crossings are out, always on well-traveled
streets, with police sending everyone who approaches the area off on
a trip through other streets in the area. South of where my mother
lives in the old people's home on Penn Street, one block of Penn is
blocked off with a sign announcing 'Danger! High water ahead' and
(since from there south is outside the city limits) on the east side
of the street a fellow who has a half dozen cows and horses and pigs
temporarily evacuated for the animal's safety has a rowboat and is out
on his new 'lake' looking around. Cars coming down Penn Street see the
sign, and with disgust turn east and go down Edison Street instead.
The nearby farmers (outside the city limits of course since _we_ do
not allow farming inside the city) have mostly evacuated their animals
over to east of town on Cement Street near the big pastures over
there. PAT]
T (nospam.kd1s@cox.nospam.net)