{Just My Type}

Still wet in Arkansas

As the new blog banner shows, we are still experiencing record rainfall and flooding in our corner of the world.  We took the boys out again to check out some other flooding issues.  The town of Beaver, Arkansas is just down the river (the White River) from Beaver Dam.  They've recently had to open the floodgates farther than they've ever had to before to help keep Beaver Lake below dangerous flood levels.  Here's a pic of the bridge at Beaver, AR that spans the White River during normal conditions:

This pic was found on the internet at http://bridgehunter.com/photos/10/01/100148-M.jpg

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And here's a pic of my boys standing as close to the bridge as we could get before getting wet:

You'd be lucky to get under the bridge in a canoe at this point.  I've seen a couple other pics on the web that has the water all the way to the bottom of the bridge with floating debris backing up next to it but apparently that had been cleared out by the time we got down to see the bridge after school.

The Floodgates are Open

That phrase in our house usually refers to someone bawling their eyes out.  Not this time!  We've had SO.MUCH.RAIN. for the past few weeks.  So much now that the floodgates are open on the dam!

Beaver Lake was finished in 1966 and since that time the Army Corp of Engineers has only had to open the floodgates on the dam 7 times because of extreme high water levels.  Today marked the second time in two weeks that they've opened them now.  Before the floodgates were opened today the water level was two tenths of an inch below the all-time high mark.

In November 2005 we went down to a part of the lake that was flooded when the lake was created.  It was an outdoor cement ampitheater.  The lake water level was so low at that time (just over two years ago) that part of this ampitheater was sticking out above the water enough for people to go and walk all over it.  It looked like ancient Roman ruins or something.  This is a pic from that day with my arrow marking where the usual shoreline was.

Now, today, we take new lake pictures, but this time of the water at a near-record high.  Since they open the high floodgates like this HARDLY EVER we thought it was worth the 30 min. drive to get to the dam to check things out for ourselves.  It's cool!  Its like we have our own Mini-Niagra Falls right now.  As soon as we left the truck there's this amazing roaring sound of the water dumping into the White River and your face gets sprayed with mist from it when the breeze catches it.

According to a TV news interview the Army Corps of Engineers does not know when they'll shut down the floodgates this time but from the sound of it, it won't be anytime soon.  And with us expecting rain AGAIN over the next three days I think we'll get to keep our waterall for a while.