Heavy lifting in the flood zone

Sure, we had an unexpected day off this week, but that doesn't mean people weren't working. Students, staff, and faculty volunteers helped downtown businesses move merchandise into storage, furniture out of basement dorm rooms, and tarps onto playing fields prone to flooding. I didn't do any heavy lifting except to move assignments around on my syllabi to compensate for the cancelled classes.

Our students are too young to remember the last time campus flooded this badly and some didn't quite believe it when they were warned to move their cars out of low-lying parking lots, but fortunately we had plenty of advance warning this time. The Ohio River peaked last night, so the waters ought to recede to more manageable levels by Monday. Meanwhile, the clean-up continues.

Our creek didn't rise high enough to cover the driveway but it left behind plenty of wood below our bridge. Flooding was worse on the Muskingum River, which backed up into our creek and covered our road and a few stretches of the state highway. I couldn't get home Wednesday night and so stayed with a friend, but by Thursday afternoon the water had receded from the roads on our end of the county. But that didn't mean the danger was over--all that water was moving downstream toward the Ohio.

My social media is crowded with photos of water covering roads, parking lots, parks, and playing fields in Marietta. We were sitting high and dry on Friday when the announcement came through that classes had been cancelled due to flooding, but while water lapped at the steps of the Fine Arts building, our property was dry enough to allow a wildflower walk, though the ground is still too mushy for mowing. Not that Im' complaining. After days of sudden violent downpours, high winds, and hail, we're ready to enjoy some spring sunshine. 

Where my road meets the highway.

The river should not be visible here, but it's all over the place.

Now blooming: trilliums and Dutchmen's breeches.

My creek looks pretty harmless after all that fuss.