[AT] And now for something a little different...

[David Bruce]

Same thing here when those bridges were replaced in the years after our 
local incident.  They have even paved a road across some river bottom 
land that floods about once a year.  I was expecting some very bad 
results but just maybe those in Raleigh learned from your experience in '99.

We don't have the long stretches of bridges here but at least they are 
no longer creating choke points.

David
NW NC

On 8/4/2012 7:56 PM, charlie hill wrote:
> David,  the problem happened when they rebuilt and replaced all those low
> roads by building them up where they passed through river and creek
> watersheds.
> They apparently gave no thought to what building what amounts to a bunch of
> dams, some several miles long, was going to do in a flood.  They put very
> few
> culverts under the roads.  The new roads being built through swamps down
> here now are elevated bridges all the way over the watersheds.  Of course
> that is
> very expensive but it's necessary.
>
> Charlie
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Bruce
> Sent: Saturday, August 04, 2012 7:31 PM
> To: Antique tractor email discussion group
> Subject: Re: [AT] And now for something a little different...
>
> I remember in the days after that trying to get from Burlington, NC to
> Edenton, NC to assist a customer.  The trip east was a bear and with
> many major detours because of the flooding.  I was there for the week
> and even driving back several days later the evidence of the flooding
> was very apparent.
>
> Few years earlier (ok a lot of years earlier) when I was taking driver's
> ed in the summer (1972 as I remember) we had a couple weeks of nearly
> constant rainfall.  The creek near the high school was over the road for
> several days - several feet over and all due to shoddy road construction
> further down the creek.
>
> David
> NW NC
>
> On 8/4/2012 5:55 PM, charlie hill wrote:
>> Steve,   I know that feeling well.  In the big flood we had in 99 the
>> water
>> was rising an inch an hour at my mom's place and was already about 4'
>> higher
>> than it had ever been before.  I was on my
>> way to go and get her out.  Her house was already surrounded by water but
>> it's atop a hill and she was still high and dry but I had to get someone
>> with a boat to go and get her.  I couldn't get in there
>> with a 2 ton truck.  Anyway, while on the way to get her I suddenly saw
>> why
>> the flooding was so bad.  In the late 60's they build a new road to serve
>> a
>> local industrial plant that was under construction.
>> The road crossed the creek that flow around 3 sides of her house but about
>> 4
>> miles down stream from her.  To build the road they filled nearly half a
>> mile of swamp that makes up the watershed for the creek and left a bridge
>> about 60' long as the only way for the water to flow out.  When I crossed
>> that bridge there was about 3' of elevation difference in the water level
>> between the upstream and down stream sides of the road.  Water was
>> shooting
>> through the bridge opening like it was coming out of a  fire hydrant.   If
>> I'd had a 40 ton excavator I would have very tempted to rip that bridge
>> out
>> right then and there.  As it turns out almost all of the severe flooding
>> in
>> eastern NC was the direct result of highways built since the late 50's.
>> We
>> were in a cycle of severe hurricanes in the early and mid 50's that died
>> down and it appears we are back in that cycle now.  The water in 99 liked
>> just inches of getting in her house.   I pulled a vent register out of her
>> floor and measured down to the water in the metal duct and it was 11" from
>> the top of the carpet to the water.  That put the water about 1 to 2
>> inches
>> from the house framing.   There were literally millions, perhaps billions,
>> of dollars of damage from that flood and most of it would never have
>> happened if those bridges and highways had not been built.  Since then
>> we've
>> had two more such floods.  Not as bad as 99 but worse than anything prior
>> to
>> about 59.
>>
>> Charlie
>>
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