Saturday, April 2, 2016

Flooding in the Valley

Before I go on sharing pictures of the several waterfalls I've been to, I should tell you about the local flooding going on.  It's not much compared to places that sometimes suffer major floods, but it's certainly disrupting some peoples' lives here!

As I said yesterday, after 3-4" of rain in four days, the rivers are running high.  The gates of the Lake Eugenia dam had to be opened to keep homes from flooding, but that sent extra water down the Beaver River - a LOT of extra water!  In several places roads have been closed, with water over the road.  Notice the stream on the left hand side of this picture, normally a little trickle in the ditch.

One of the biggest local impacts has been washing out the bridge into the Beaver Valley Ski Club.  This is a double-lane bridge, over a normally quite small branch of the river.  But now the water is backed up against the upstream edge of the bridge, flowing overtop and loosening pavement.

It's dropping back down into the river in the gap between the two lanes of the bridge, but it's what's going on underneath that will determine the structural integrity of the bridge  - once the water goes down enough that they can assess it.  People live in here, so they are ferrying them to their homes by ATV from the top of the ski hill.

The river further downstream has totally flooded the golf course at Talisman Mountain Springs Inn, the golf course currently in the process of being restored.  Water is flowing across the access road.  And nearby, 2 or 3 houses look flooded; those are the people probably suffering the most.

Lots of farm fields like this are flooded, and the weather is dull dark and grey.

This is the weather late this afternoon; yes we are back to snow, an east wind blowing it in my fce in this picture.  The forecast is for snow and freezing temperatures all week.  And small spring puddles that form in fields like this every year are now small spring lakes!

LOTS of flooded fences around; luckily the barn here is up higher than this low spot in the pasture.

And there are lots of little streams that usually don't really exist, coming down the very steep slopes of the upper valley.  It's no wonder the river itself is over its banks!

The Ordovician Shale layer that forms the lower slopes in the valley erodes easily, so the turbid colour in this stream is not from farm fields, but from forested slopes where the torrent of runoff is cutting into the shale.

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I would have been out getting more pictures today, but I was off to a Bruce Trail Conservancy meeting of all the club Stewardship Directors (I'm the volunteer who does that here in the valley).  I was pleased to learn that our club is probably doing as well as any in terms of moving ahead with new initiatives, as well as getting all our reports in annually.  Meanwhile, Mrs. FG was off to what she thought was a rug hooking show in Owen Sound.  Turned out it wasn't a show, but a 'Hook-in' where the ladies gathered to hook together.  But she knew a number of them who are also in the Quilting Guild, so she had a nice visit with a number of the hookers.

And here's a video, just for the sound track. Local readers will appreciate this, 'cause it's such a contrast with the usual trickle over the bedrock - Eugenia Falls at full throttle!




15 comments:

  1. The flooding is awful and such a disaster for people involved.

    You have captured the scene well.

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  2. wow that is a lot of water, I hope it stops raining soon:)

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  3. Wow! Now that is some flooding all right. I do hope it lets up soon and you can return to some semblance of normal.

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  4. Wow - sorry to hear about all the flooding in your area.

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  5. That looks pretty serious to me. I'm not surprised to see that barn standing on dry land; I've seen it so often here, old buildings constructed in places that seem no higher than surrounding fields but somehow escape being flooded for season after season. Meanwhile modern builders construct houses on what's called "the floodplain" then scratch their heads in disbelief when the site is inundated.

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  6. The bridge pictures are pretty spectacular!

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  7. We don't appreciate the power of water nearly enough do we? I mean, for most of us it's just that stuff that comes out of the tap. Or doesn't when you switch the tap off. Great reporting.
    Does it ever strike you that all our stuff will presumably be on line forever and a great source for future researchers? Although probably most people won't be researching crispy snacks!

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  8. Hello, the flooding is awful. I hope everyone remained safe. I enjoyed the video of the waterfalls. Happy Sunday, enjoy your new week ahead!

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  9. Water is great ...
    Too much water is not great ...

    We too have had areas in the UK that have experienced flooding and some of it was quite bad.

    Take care

    All the best Jan

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  10. That is serious flooding. I've been looking at river levels here, but thus far it seems more orderly. We do have the cold temperatures in place today.

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  11. A huge ,amount of water, I hope farmers and home owners stay safe. Mrs F.G. what a day out for you!!

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  12. Water is so powerful and can do so much damage.
    Nice to hear and see the waterfall.

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  13. Flooding like that is scary and so damaging. So far our melt is going slowly here although the Mactaquac Dam has all the gates open to lower the head pond and this results in the rise of water levels below the dam. All normal every spring season. The big chill is on here too and I'm not pleased. But, our snow is all gone and we don't have any in the forecast. Take care.

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  14. We have flooding down here to mainly from our river in the valley but no real damage . Yes the waters flow very fast and are quite dangerous . Oh so Mrs F.G is a hooker eh? now now not like that cheeky bugger GEESH ! Glad she had a nice tome with the girls . Thanks for sharing lovely photos ,. Have a good day !

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  15. Spring floods like that should be enough proof to convince people not to live in the temporarily dry part of river and stream channels -- but it isn't. Down here flood insurance premiums have gone way up resulting in much squealing and complaining from owners of homes that never should have been built in their locations.

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