Wednesday, May 10, 2017

At The Peak Of The High Water

I usually keep photoblogging over in my photoblog, but I'm in the midst of one series, which will shortly be followed by a series on our Tulip Festival. So for today and my usual Saturday post, I have material on what's been happening here in recent days.

These shots, as well as the shots for the next post, were taken this past Sunday. It's been on the news in a lot of places about the flooding conditions in Ontario and Quebec. The Ottawa River Valley has been part of that, with problems in low lying areas throughout the valley. It also applies to tributaries like the Rideau River, which has been swollen with spring rains as of late. 

This is the Rideau River at Billings Bridge, where the water is high, having had come up over the banks. The bike path that goes under the bridge is under water.


These two views look west and east. There are a couple of low lying islands to the west that are now completely under water.


Here we have the other side of the bike path. The trees currently in water should be at the river bank, not half submerged.


Downstream, the river has crept up into the park land alongside it. Trees currently partially submerged mark where the riverbank usually is. The river's course through the remainder of the city, to where it meets the Ottawa River, is almost entirely adjoined by park land.


A little further along, the park land widens into Windsor Park, which is lower lying than the houses that border it. The river has flowed into the lower areas of the park, including part of the tennis courts. A careful look at the first shot here might make out the person walking in rubber boots towards me on the submerged path. In the next post, I'll show you what the Ottawa River looked like on this day.

23 comments:

  1. My goodness. I hope no one was hurt.

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  2. Does not look that bad considering how the Thames floods at times

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  3. Unfortunate to see that Canada is also experiencing severe flooding issues, like many U.S. states. We have also had a lot of rain here in NH, but thankfully nothing to the extent shown in your photos.

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  4. Yikes. This reminds me of the flooding experience in southern Minnesota some years back. The bike trails/ski trails in many areas were under water as were some farms. I feel sorry for those who have flooding destroy their homes and possessions.

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  5. @Debs: not that I know of, but people have had property damage in both provinces, and we're still waiting on the high water to start going down.

    @Bill: this one's not too bad, but the Ottawa River has done some serious damage during the flooding. I've never seen it as high as it's been.

    @Beatrice: we got three days of rain at the weekend that we really didn't need. That made it a lot worse. They said in the news that the Ottawa River had crested at some point on Sunday-Monday.

    @Lowell: it's humbling to see the power of nature.

    @Jennifer: it is, yes.

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  6. Bad power, but beautiful photos.

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  7. Odd how you've got floods and we've got an unseasonal drought right now.

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  8. How terrible! There have been floods in other parts of the US but none around here, thank goodness. It's scary when children are swept out of mothers' arms and cars are suddenly submerged.

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  9. There's been a lot of flooding going on lately. Good thing global warming's just a scam, right? :P

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  10. Wow! We had major flooding when I first moved to Pennsylvania. The Delaware River overflowed and a lot was destroyed. Stay safe!

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  11. @Orvokki: the power of nature can be ferocious.

    @Jenny: last year was very dry for us, all summer long.

    @Cheryl: having had seen the state of the Ottawa River, I was left in awe. I'll have that on Saturday.

    @JE: in the mind set of the Orange Cheeto!

    @Kelly: nature can kick ass when it wants to. I'm fairly safe, but there are areas here that have seen flooding into houses.

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  12. Yikes! It looks like the flooding we've had here recently.

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  13. You seem to have the same problems as California. I didn't realize it hit that far East and North of us also.

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  14. Wow, that is terrible, hopefully it will start to recede soon.

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  15. Looks like some trees are getting a deep root watering. Hope those houses don't have basements.

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  16. W had a big flood some ten years ago. Folks were drying their houses out for months afterwards. My sympathies to all involved this deluge.

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  17. When we drove across country and we reached southern Illinois, we noticed a lot of flooded fields with side roads under water in part. We saw the same in other states as we got closer to home. Hope it gets better up your way. Terrible for those who have to deal with it.

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  18. @Norma: the force of the water is tremendous.

    @Mari: we had a good deal of snow over the winter, so part of this has to do with snowmelt, but it's also that we had a very wet April.

    @Bill: it's slowly starting to.

    @Lynn: I used to live a couple of blocks away, but the streets here slope up away from the river. Those closest might have problems.

    @William: it's a tough thing to get through. Some areas have been badly hit.

    @Denise: we see flooded fields here in the spring, but the water does seep back into the soil after a time. In the park, when the water goes down, there'll be some residual water around that tennis court for a bit.

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  19. Oh dear - that IS a lot of water. Hope there wasn't too much damage.

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  20. Water, water everywhere - hope it subsides soon.

    All the best Jan

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    1. It's now noticeably fallen. I took some shots yesterday and the water levels had lowered. You could see the high water mark by the remaining twigs on the lawn below Parliament Hill.

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