Pictures 8-22-2016

Last week on Thursday the freshmen who had not already arrived on campus for SJC sports were supposed to move in. A number of businesses were there to greet them. The Chamber of Commerce people said that they did not talk to as many this year as in the past.

 On Wednesday work was still being done to Gallagher Hall. Note the different color of the two panels on the left in the picture below.

 One activity for new students was a volunteer day on Saturday. I noticed that all the bays were open on the city building on the corner of Vine and Melville, north of Columbia Park. I had never seen all the bucket trucks for the electric linemen parked together. There were SJC students sweeping out the building.

 On Saturday we got about three inches of rain and that was in addition to about four inches in the previous week. A line of storms passed through and following it was a thin tail of more rain that trained over Rensselaer. A few miles north and a few miles south people got much less rain than we did. Yards were flooded all over town and the Maxwell Ditch by Brookside Park was flowing over Jackson Street.

 The river is up but will not reach flood stage (12 feet). It peaked at just under 11 feet. Rensselaer got a lot of rain but much of the watershed got much less. We will set some daily flow records.

The city had four pumps working to move water over Jefferson Street near Lincoln. Before Rensselaer was built up, there was a swale that ran in that area up past the power plant to the northeast part of town. The early city residents blocked it up but water goes where it wants to go and the loss of that drainage continues to cause problems whenever we get heavy rains. That is why the intersection of College and Front and the low stretch of SR 114 near the power plant flood.

At least one of the pits at the construction site for the high water treatment plant got a lot of water.

The workers had been erecting forms last week. New piles of rebar have been delivered to the site.

 In other construction news, a new sidewalk is being installed around Lafayette Bank and Trust.

 On Sunday morning I encountered a doe and two fawns in Weston Cemetery. They wanted to cross the bridge over the Maxwell Ditch but there was a runner on the other side. The doe eventually decided to retreat up the hill. My picture was not as clear as I wanted it to be.

 Sunday was the last day on which the city pool was open. I thought it might close early for lack of patrons as it had on Saturday, but a bit after I arrived a pack of kids who had been picnicking in the shelter arrived.

 The start of school and the closing of the swimming pool are two indicators that summer is coming to an end. Another is the appearance of Halloween displays in the stores. I noticed this one at CVS on Sunday afternoon.

I forgot to mention that our bison came in second in the popular vote at the state fair and was one of four that received honorable mention in the judges decision.