Seen in St. Louis

Earlier today during a short lunch break from the hours of recording and editing this week’s episode, we walked down to the riverfront and it was nice to see that Leonor K Sullivan Blvd is now completely open to car traffic. They are even doing bike and buggy rentals down there again, and are starting up the river cruises this weekend. I love the shadow of the Gateway Arch in these photos.

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The cleanup after the flood is happening at a steady pace. Leonor K Sullivan Blvd is not only visible again, but will soon be ready to drive on I think. This is a far cry from the pictures we took when the flood was highest.

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I just got D.J. a new digital SLR for his birthday, and while it is a bit like Homer Simpson getting Marge a bowling ball for her birthday with his name on it, I tried it out yesterday down at the riverfront. It is an amazing first real camera for us, a Nikon D40, with a 15-55mm lense. Here are some of my favorite shots. Notice how the river is higher than in previous similar shots we took last week and the week before with the Panasonic Lumix point-and-shoot.

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The Mississippi River has breached 11 levees now in the St. Louis area (from Hannibal to here) and another four are at risk of breaking, according to the Army Corp of Engineers, and is noticeably higher than when me made our last post a couple days ago on June 17. We tried to get similar shots as before so you can see the contrast.

These last four pictures are on the south end of the Jefferson Expansion Memorial Park, the “Archgrounds.” If you stand facing the Mississippi, and then walk all the way to the right of the Arch as far as you can go, you will arrive at the top of the “South Overlook.” The almost-submerged tree, roadsigns and makeshift damn is looking down from the overlook (and the submerged street is the end of Poplar Street I think), and the picture of the Arch with the submerged row of trees is looking the other direction along what is an underwater South Leonor K Sullivan Blvd, still standing from atop the South Overlook.

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Last week when we took the pictures of the the flooding Mississippi down by the St. Louis Arch, it was so high it forced the closing of the President Casino. And now it is much higher still—we took these pictures near sunset tonight before grabbing a too-delicious dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory in Laclede’s Landing. The mighty Mississippi has now overtaken Leonor K Sullivan Blvd completely, and is up the first section of stairs leading up to the Arch, which is directly behind us in this first picture.

Notice the stop sign and the almost submerged trash can in these pictures. A couple weeks ago, near this stop sign you could still see the outstretched hand of the bronze statue of Lewis and Clark down on the cobble-stone walkable area nearest the river.

According to the National Weather Service, the Mississippi River in this area could get as high as 39.6 feet by 6/22 and 40.2 feet on 6/23. It is currently around 35.8 feet as of today. They say that at 40.0 feet, major flooding will begin, because at this level, the Choteau Island Levee near Granite City, which protects some 4200 acres of land, will be overtopped. But we can be somewhat grateful that even when the flood hits what they think its peak will be, which is 10 feet above flood stage, it will still be about 10 feet below where it got in 1993.

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Not unlike the breathtaking flooding in 1993, the mighty Mississippi is at it again. We took these photos on our morning walk today.

The river is up so high that it has overtaken the cobblestone walkable area down at the riverbank, and is even up over the stairs and into the streets. But it hasn’t overtaken Leonor K Sullivan Blvd completely yet, which is the street visible in these pictures.

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