Another (100-year?) rainfall ‘event’ has brought me out of my blogging hiatus.
I took these photos early this afternoon on Armstrong Road near the Northfield compost facility where runoff from this morning’s torrential rainfall cut through the road, washed away the Mill Towns Trail bridge, and completely undermined the railroad bed.
More photos to come? Probably.
Update 7 am, July 14:
More photos to show the size of the washout on Armstrong Road.
A construction crew evidently arrived yesterday and has begun work on the railroad bridge. My friend used to do water damage repair in Los Angeles and is on the work crew.
Update July 18: A few more of my flooding-related photos below. See Rob Hardy’s comprehensive listing of links related to the flooding on Northfield.org.
Wow, amazing pictures, Griff.
Hey Griff, I’m glad you took a hiatus from your hiatus. These are great pictures. I’m surprised to see how rapidly the repairs were begun.
Nick Benson has a “before” picture in his collection: http://ottergoose.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=617101
Thanks Griff. We drove out there today, and saw you biking away. Mother Nature is an awesome force!
Fantastic pictures. I wonder, given this is getting to be a frequent event, if UPR will actually increase the sizing of their culvert system. I hope they take a little time (not too much, but some) to think about what sizing needs to happen when 200-500 year floods become the norm. Both both the county culvert and rail culvert were undersized.
Wow Griff! These pictures are extraordinary.
Amazing pics. Bet you didn’t know one of those orange/yellow lines carries all CenturyLink long distance traffic from the whole state of South Dakota. Still down as of now.
I agree, Paul. And now would be the time to properly size all three culverts for the three transportation modes cut by the latest flood. Then start thinking about mitigating all the flooding in our region, since it seems to be becoming a yearly event. The Armstrong Road culvert needed replacing, but this was a rough way to get it done!
Thanks everyone for your kind comments about the photos. I’ve added a few of downtown to the blog post above.
See Rob Hardy’s comprehensive listing of links related to the flooding on Northfield.org.
Paul/George, they reopened the old culvert and put in a new larger secondary one. I’ll try to get photos.