Super Saturday Snapshots - March 15, 2014

Today we are linking up with Melinda at West Metro Mommy for Super Saturday Snapshots.

Today's photos are from the flooding that occurred in my home town in November 2000. Tamworth has a river that runs through the middle of town and most days it is fairly shallow. However, it is prone to flooding after extended amounts of rainfall. It had rained for several days and we were all waiting to see just how high the Peel River would crest. If it got high enough it would close all of the bridges that linked the two sides of town and would cut the town into two. 

The normal level of the Peel River. Average depth would be less than 1m/3ft

       The morning of the flooding I headed to work and looked at the river as I crossed over it. I could see that the river was swollen, but had not broken the banks yet. The news station thought that the river might rise enough to close the bridges but it was just a waiting game.

The river was rising but so far was still had not broken the riverbank,

I arrived at work at 8:30am and it was only an hour or so later when they announced that the police were going to close the bridges very soon so if you wanted to get back across to the other side of town you needed to leave. By the time I got onto the street they had already closed the bridges to traffic so I had a choice. I could walk the 2 miles/3.2kn home as the bridge was still open to pedestrian traffic or go back to work and be bored to tears as we weren't going to have very much business. I figured the walking home option sounded better so I left my car on high ground and walked home. Along the way I got some photos of the rising waters.

There's a road and some fields under here somewhere.

After I got home my aunt came by and we went back around town to see how high the water would go. We ended up getting some pretty good photos of the flooding.

This is the same bridge as the second photo but with much more water under it.

A little further down the river the road was under several feet of water.

Somewhere under here is baseball fields and other sports grounds.

The floodwater rose enough to cover the main road near the main bridge.

Every one in town came out to see the flooding.

Guests at this hotel ended up getting a water front upgrade for free.

The river crested a little after lunch and by later that afternoon the river had subsided enough for me to go back across town to get my car and drive it home. Since then the city has invested a lot of money into levee banks to protect the downtown area along with the industrial area of town that was always prone to flooding. 

Flooding will always be a part of life every few years in Tamworth due to its location. I was grateful that I was given the chance to head home and not be stuck on the wrong side of town. We do get some flooding in the area that I live in now but it is not nearly as high. Do you live in a flood prone area? If so how often does it flood?