High Water

My Weather Radar app forwards National Weather Service warnings by making the smartphone shriek and vibrate. It's been issuing flood warnings for this area since Sunday's heavy rain. This was taken where LaBarque Creek empties into the Meramec River -- the flood's peak, if it doesn't rain again today. A foot or two higher and the water'd crawl up over Highway FF as it did in '08, when all my three possible routes home, including the Interstate, flooded and the National Guard turned us back and I couldn't get home for four days. When the water gets up about this high I try not to leave home (which I'm grateful is on high ground). Flooding is a growing problem as more land is developed and paved. Jeff County Highway W is under water -- don't plan on going there.

Heart Like a Rain Gauge

Ace climbs water towers and sets water pressure for small towns. His van is packed with tools and straps and ladders and gauges, including a Geiger counter. He showed me how some of gauges worked. The indicator needles jumped and held. "See these?" he said. "They don't lie."

I was amazed. Surely those things lie. Somehow. I keep testing my tire pressure over and over because I usually don't credit, at first, what the gauge says. But Ace makes a living by trusting his gauges, so he must be right: What gauges say is the reality.

Here's my rain gauge, sort of like a footlong shot glass, and its view of what fell last night: one and one-half inches of rain. This isn't good news for this part of Missouri. But it's a reality. Plans must be made for the rivers rising again this week. People are murmuring "Flood of '93," "Flood of '82." Makes an individual feel very small and feeble, and makes the heart beat harder.

Easter Washout

Our dramatic flooding this week got Missouri declared a disaster area and onto the national news. (A big Chicago paper referred to Pacific, Mo., as a "hamlet" -- obviously they dont know Pacific has 2 QuikTrips and 2 McDonald's.) Although my house stayed dry, the three possible routes home -- one along the Big River and two along the Meramec River -- were all underwater, with the National Guard turning back anyone who tried to drive through. So I got stuck in the city on Thursday and just got home now, Easter Sunday. Water level isn't all that's falling; first thing I do stepping out of the car in my city shoes is slip on wet gravel and fall on my face.

And this is what it looks like outside on this baby chicken and bunny day! Not only snow, but there's a 14-lb. ham in the fridge ready for out-of-state guests who didn't get here because of the rising rivers. I'll have to throw a big party next weekend to celebrate the end of March in Missouri!