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| Rain and high winds knocked all sorts of branches down at our house. Luckily, none actually HIT our house. But the playset did suffer a minor casualty... |
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| However, the hail earlier in the week apparently caused some roof damage, as we had a good bit of leaking going on in the living room (through the fan, along the seams near the fan, above the mantle, and through the fireplace). Insurance adjuster came out Monday to assess the damage and now we're just waiting on their acceptance of his recommendation for a full roof replacement and repair of the inside walls/ceiling. Fingers crossed! |
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| Parking lot flooding at the office. All that construction dirt sure is mobile... |
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| Our neighbor's pond, overflowing down into one of the ravines that run behind our house... |
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| The creek next to the Piggly Wiggly (the water was higher earlier in the week, but I didn't think to snap a picture until Friday) |
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| The winds caused some power outages on our end of town on Saturday, and as usual, Judson Circle was included. It was a cooler evening and the chicks are tiny still, so they were moved inside to try and keep them warmer. When I came home from my run Sunday they were walking and climbing (especially Jay's shoulders) and "flying" around the laundry room as everyone played with them (the power had returned around 1:30am, so they were already warmed back up via their heat lamp). The chicks are growing quick and getting very friendly! |
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| The Pearl River in Jackson is extremely flooded. There should be land visible in both these photos... |
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This report says Vicksburg received 8" of rain over the past 7 days, but other reports state that we got 11" (see the map below - Vicksburg is right in the center, colored dark red). Considering we filled our rainfall gauge (which holds 5") twice over, I'll go with the 11" for our house. |
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| Paxton Road, just south of Agape |
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| The bridge that separates the city from the county, next to Piggly Wiggly (this photo was snapped at the end of the work day, when the water had receded back to the span of the bridge and was no longer flooding the fields beyond) |
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| Our neighbor's pond... |
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| I took this photo for my dad, since he was curious whether the "Entering Flood Zone" area near the kids' school ever floods. Apparently it does. We got almost 5" of rain in under 24 hours, which resulted in flash floods all over town, including this flood zone. That little blue car is stuck out there, on the road (which had warning signs...), a huge oak fell over in that pasture to the top left, the train was stopped, and the raging waters were filled with branches and pouring through the drainage under the road. Crazy! |
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| Instead of rushing home to check on our house/property, I went to the gym. Jacob spent the afternoon with us, and James was obviously spoiled by all the attention! |
The old train depot is really swimming now...
See all that water to the right of the depot in the below picture? Yeah, NONE of that should be there...
Here's Golding Barge again. Completely surrounded, with their staircase floating (don't worry, it's tied-up so they don't lose it).
And here is Diamond Jacks again, from the front. See that little awning out there in the middle? That's the top of that staircase again. Not that you can see the steps.
The water is expected to remain above flood stage until mid-June. It's going to be a very long month for the folks who are displaced.
This is actually the Yazoo River, just upstream from where the Yazoo meets the Mississippi.
Poor old caboose. James is going to be sad when he sees it under water.
This is Golding Barge. You may have seen it on the news recently. One of our friends works there and even got his picture taken with Al Roker. They had their office raised up onto blocks before the flooding started, so it should survive The Great Flood of 2011. Needless to say, they won't be working in the office this week.
From the overlook, you can see Riverfront Park. More riverfront now than ever before. And that's Diamond Jack's casino flooded in the background. Those stairs you saw Jay kneeling in front of a week ago are now completely under water.
We drove over the Mississippi River Bridge into Louisiana and were shocked how near the water level is to the top of the levee...
Then we headed south of I-20 to see the other 2 casinos. The newest one (built just a couple of years ago, and my Grandma's favorite when she comes to visit, since she usually wins big there) had signs along their long, descending driveway saying "We're still open", "Come see our", "Fancy new", "Sand wall!" Yeah, the parking lot is not usually waterfront like that...
We're facing another flood here in the 'Burg. This time it's going to be much, much worse though (6.5 ft higher than it was in 2008). Even worse than the historic flood of 1927 (1.3 ft higher). Flood stage is 43.0 ft. The Mississippi River at Vicksburg is currently at 49.2 ft, and is expected to crest at 57.5 ft on May 20th. These are the areas expected to be affected by flood waters:
Portions of Diamond Jack's casino are already under water:
They are filling in the remainder of the flood wall downtown:
And the Horizon casino boat is floating high (that walkway usually dips way down, not up):
Luckily, our home is up on the bluffs south of town. However, there are a LOT of folks, here and elsewhere along the Mighty Mississippi, that are not so lucky. Please keep them in your prayers, and hope that they evacuate safely well before the flood waters reach their doorsteps.
That evening we went over to Sandy's apartment (always the gracious hostess) to celebrate with our coworkers. We overlooked the goings-ons from her balcony, listened to the music from the south stage (a stones throw away), and eventually ventured out into the crowd. We didn't take many photos, but here are a couple of Jon riding The Bull and some of the group looking on as another party-goer gives it a shot.
