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| Photo courtesy of my son, who snapped this with his phone about 4 pm Saturday. |
That's 224 Highway in Lafayette County, Missouri, just 2 or 3 miles west of Lexington's city limits. Between the trees on the left and the railroad tracks on the right, there's supposed to be a road. All the rainfall we've had lately has made the Mighty Mo overflow her banks. That's a common occurrence around here, although it's a bit late in the spring for that much flooding. We got word last week that it will only get worse. The Corps of Engineers is opening the Gavin's Point Dam near Yankton, South Dakota a little bit at a time. (Note that in this case, "little bit" is a relative term.) That creates a slow and terrible domino effect of flooding for everything in the Missouri River basin down river from Yankton. The Corps tells us that a slow release of water is better than a huge rush of water if the levees break. That's probably true, but to me it sounds like the difference between being slapped around several times versus taking one hard punch to the face--either way, it's gonna hurt. Lexington is situated on a bluff above the river, so the town itself won't flood. Lafayette County is mostly farmland (the whole county has a population of less than 34,000) and those farmers are listening to the local radio reports and worrying that this might be the Flood of 1993 all over again. I hope they're wrong, but the National Weather Service's flood warning for the county sounds grim: "Record upstream reservoir releases have begun and will likely continue for the rest of the summer." That tells me this won't be the last time I write about flooding.