The City of Brotherly Flood

Man, is it getting ugly on the Schuylkill River. Today, I took a quick tour of the Art Museum area, and what I saw was quite a sight to behold. This morning I heard on the news that the river will reach historic highs - higher than it has ever been in recorded history. That's saying a lot, when you consider Hurricane Agnes in '72 and Floyd in '99.

Schuylkill is an Indian word meaning "hidden stream," because the origins of the river are not easily defined; there's not one definitive source like a bay or reservoir - it's a series of springs. Well, there's nothing hidden about the river now. Take a look. ...



Above is a view of the Schuylkill River flowing by Boathouse Row (top) and the Philadelphia Water Works (foreground).



Check out the river in pictures I took earlier today. Yikes! And it's expected to rise higher and higher and crest sometime early Thursday, but the river will take days to recede. More photos...



Boathouse Row. There'll be no rowing anytime soon.



A view of the Spillway from Martin Luther King Jr. Drive (formerly West River Drive). Grrrr! Angry river.



Another view of the Spillway from the Water Works side of the river.



These giant upcurrents (I don't know what else to call them - if it were air it would be an updraft) appear over and over about 100 feet or so past the dam. Translation: anything that gets thrown over the spillway either gets caught in the undercurrent right by the dam or gets sucked under and pulled along the bottom until it reaches this point. This is the number one lesson about why to never swim near a dam. If, heaven forbid, someone came over the dam when the water is this high? Death.



Yet another view from the Water Works side of the river. I watched this giant tree get slammed over the spillway, roiling in the spillway's strong currents and getting banged against the dam before drifting in front of me and down in front of the Water Works. The power of the current that the spillway generates during high water is remarkable.



This is a view looking up near the spillway - there were lots of people out gawking and taking pictures today.



The trash that the currents swept up near the Water Works. It's tough to comprehend all of the crap that floats by when you stand and watch the river. I counted 25 tires, an infinite number of plastic bottles and balls of all sorts, hundreds of huge stumps and limbs, a Playmate cooler, and an enormous propane tank that probably belonged to a mobile home or large house, 3 doors and a whole set of steps. And this was all in only about 45 minutes time. The depressing thing about all of this? It's all headed to the ocean. Hey, a flood is a flood, and it's usually unexpected and poorly prepared for, but it really saddens me to see so many plastic bottles needlessly headed toward the ocean. Yet another reason for all of us to redouble our recycling efforts.