Flooding at Coolmeadow!

Jim O'Dell

Member
Messages
2,783
Location
Between Aledo and Fort Worth, TX
I may have mentioned in posts before that where I live, there is one road in, and it's over a creek. I know the creek has overflowed before...my Dad was here helping build my fence, and on a Sunday night it rained 6", and went over the bridge. By morning, it was back down and chunks of asphalt had been ripped off the top of the concrete structure.
Well, it's been raining this afternoon, but I doubt very seriously if over an inch and a half. Mostly medium steady rain. I came home at 5:20, and the water was 4' below the bridge. A care giver for the Curley's across the street came by about 5:45, was maybe up to 3' below the bridge. 20 minutes later she was leaving and found this:DSCN1417.jpgDSCN1418.jpg
DSCN1419.jpgDSCN1420.jpg
DSCN1421.jpg
There is a bridge under there somewhere! The posts sticking up are about 2 1/2 feet high above the road surface.
These next shots are from the back side of the house. The concrete stairs lead down to a landing area that is still 3 feet or more above the normal water level. DSCN1422.jpgDSCN1423.jpgDSCN1424.jpg
This last picture is from my front yard looking back to the bridge across the neighbor's yard. I can not normally see water from this point at all! DSCN1425.jpg

I'd say the "creek" is up about 7 or 8 feet, and this all happened in the mattter of 30 minutes! The neighbor's caregiver said Mr Curley mentioned something about someone building a dam upstream some years back. I wasn't aware of it, but it sounds like the dam is no more! That's the only thing that could explain this sudden rise of water with a not serious amount of rain today.
Let's hope that no one has a medical emergency tonight! Oh, and we have guests. LOML was still teaching when this happened, so have a mother and 9 year old girl as guests. Her husband said he'd come after her. I said sure, if he has a helicopter!:rofl::rofl::rofl: Jim.
 
Hi Jim, :wave:
Thanks for a very informative update. Very considerate of you to go to all the trouble to document this. Hope you are all well and the guests are appreciative of your hospitality. The Irish sweeties are okay I presume.:)
Take care,
Shaz
 
Thanks Shaz. Yeah, the dogs are fine...just were confined to the bedroom and not happy about it. The water has now gone down and cars can go across the bridge. Didn't appear to have anything torn up on the asphalt this time. Found out from neighbors that we were talking to that a few years back, not clear as to how many, a boy tried to cross the bridge, got swept off his feet, and was holding on to a cable that runs between some of the short poles that you can see the water spashing on. 911 was called but he lost his grip before they could get here. It was 4 days before officials recovered his body. It's just not worth the risk to try to cross moving water.
Thanks again for the note. We're fine. (I actually had hoped that the water wouldn't go down that fast so that I could play hooky from work tomorrow and paint the shop! I even planned ahead and got 2 gallons of primer on the way home this evening. :D) Jim.
 
Boy, Jim, aren't you the lucky one. Just think, most folks have to travel a long way and spend a lot of money to go "White Water" rafting & Kyaking, and you just have to walk out the back door.:D Don't you wish you could save some of that water to refill the Creek during the Dry Seasons for Irrigation water.

Out here the City just uses ABOVE GROUND Drainage, and build certain streets at a lower grade for drainage instead of any underground drains. I live on one of the major ones, (we call it the "East Side Drainage Ditch"), and every time it gets filled with flowing water up to or just over the curb I think of how I'd like to have a place to SAVE some of that "FREE" water to use in July and August on the lawn. Sorry you won't get to paint, but glad the water didn't get TOO HIGH there either.
 
Update

Well, the county must have come out Sunday and cleared the big tree away from the bank by the bridge, as it was gone this am. Then came out again this am and cleared all the stuff away from the banks that had washed up. LOML said they filled 3 dump trucks before it was all said and done. She also asked them if we were going to get new poles and cables for the breidge (one more washed away this time). He said that wasn't his department. :dunno: :rofl: But it looks better than it has the almost 3 years we've lived there. Jim.
 
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