Falling water

Yesterday I heard a helicopter overhead. Yesterday evening pictures taken from that helicopter were being shared by many Rensselaerians on Facebook. If you have not seen them already, check them out.

The good news is that the river levels are falling. As I write this the river is at 15.88 feet, down from 16.67 a couple days ago. That eight or nine inches makes a huge difference on where the water is. Below is a picture of the cemetery yesterday evening.

 Here is the same area at a little after noon today. Note that you can see how much the water has receded by the road. A few inches of decline can uncover several feet of road when there is little grade.

 Last night only the top bolt of the fire hydrant at the corner of Elza and Lincoln was visible.

 Today it is slowly emerging.

 Last night the river was running through Bicentennial Park. Today you can see the mud left on the grass where last night water was flowing.

 The sandbagged houses on College are less threatened. However, Rensselaer  still has plenty of pumps running.

Today the intersection of College and Front is dry for the first time in several days. Yesterday city crews were pumping water to clear it. Lincoln and College still have deep water--the river will have to drop another foot or two before they dry out.

 The Red Cross set up temporary shelter at the Presbyterian Church. It is now closed, though they will have hours to give out information about flood clean up.

We were lucky in that we missed rain from the remnants of tropical storm Bill. The rains with that system hit southern and central Indiana. However, we still may not be out of the woods (or water). There is a line of storms heading our way in Illinois. Last night Chad Evans in his final weather report (he has left WLFI for a job in Evansville) said that he thought the storms would be falling apart as they reached our area. If he is wrong and we get some heavy rain, we may retest the highs. Plus there is rain in the forecast for most days next week. Again, if we get hit by a storm with heavy rain, the river may rise again.

But for now we can rejoice about the receding river.