Drought, Interrupted

Floodwaters surging under a bridge built in 1817, the second oldest bridge in the county

View downstream from the bridge

The remnants of Tropical Storm Nicole surged up the East Coast lat week and brought a deluge to the Mid-Atlantic Thursday evening into very early Friday morning.  As I lay awake in the early morning hours of Friday, listening to the rain pounding ceaselessly on the roof, I imagined the trees, shrubs, and animals along the creek washing away into the Delaware River.

By dawn, the rain had all but stopped, but the water continued to rise until about noon, fed  from sources upstream.  Remarkably, while the creek rose well out of its banks and many of the roads crossing it on low bridges were impassible, there was very little apparent damage in the natural area.

The images I've included with this post are from the previous big storm along the creek last winter.  I didn't have my camera with me when I went to inspect the damage from this storm but, except for the fact that the trees in these images don't have any leaves, the scene was the same.

The news media indicated that the damage and flooding would have been a lot worse if we weren't in the midst of an officially-declared drought.  The creek was extremely low before the storm and the soil was extremely dry, both of which helped to minimize the damage. 

Flooded riparian forest