Flood of '07

[jinman]

We've had rain...lots and lots of rain. By my rain gauge, I'd say at least 10 inches this week. Earlier in the week, Scotty (scott_vt) heard there were tornados in my area and sent me a PM. I told him we had some heavy showers, but nothing severe in my area, only a total of 5" of rain.

Then yesterday happened. We got another 5" of rain. So I have a series of photos to illustrate.

The first picture is last Thursday evening across my new pond, looking toward the second pond and our little lake.

The second picture is last night at sundown (sorry about the backlit picture, but I couldn't convince the sun to move ).

The third picture is on Thursday and shows how my culvert pipe was not big enough to take all the flow. I was getting a little flow across the top of this dam, but nothing severe.

The fourth photo shows how the lake has come up to the point that I no longer have ponds. It's just one big lake.

Finally, the fifth shot is from the hill where we had a TBN fishfry two years ago.

It would seem that our drought is over.

 

[EddieWalker]

Jim,

WOW, WOW, WOW WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Did I saw wow?

That is just about unbelievable. It might be too dangerous, but is there any way to see the spillway from a safe distance? the water must be coming out of there something terrible!!!

Did you stock your pond with fish? It's gonna be real interesting what you have in there now. Maybe you can start feeding them over your small pond and when the water lowers, it will be fully stocked with giant catfish. Of course, you might not want those monsters in there. hmm.

It's gonna be interesting when you fish it.

Thanks for the pics, that's really impressive.

Eddie

 

[WayneB]

Jim,

Wow that is a bunch of water! Just hope all is okay at your home! Getting over 10 inches of rain has to be tough to deal with.

Wayne

 

[jinman]

That is just about unbelievable. It might be too dangerous, but is there any way to see the spillway from a safe distance? the water must be coming out of there something terrible!!!

Eddie, we are going to take the little 2-person boat out this morning to survey the lake. I would have done it yesterday, but I couldn't get to it. Today, I'll put on my waders and go retrieve the boat if the water isn't too deep to get to the boat. The spillway is just a small culvert pipe as I remember. Maybe we can get a shot of it from the top of the dam.

I don't know how many of my fish stayed "home" in the flood, but I'm sure a lot of them will be gone to the lake. I'll probably have to restock, but that's okay. I'll take the rain and full ponds and lakes over the $250 I spent on fish. It's worth it.

Last night at sundown, my neighbor shot a big beaver that was already munching on trees. It was in my pond and caught by the receding water. We saw two, so tonight we will be doing another beaver hunt. They are just too destructive to let them live.

 

[jinman]

Jim,

Wow that is a bunch of water! Just hope all is okay at your home! Getting over 10 inches of rain has to be tough to deal with.

Wayne

Wayne, my house is up the hill another 50' or more up in elevation. If it ever gets in danger of flooding, we'll be looking for an ark. Thanks for your concern.

 

[EddieWalker]

Jim,

Interesting that a 20 acre lake is only drained by a large culvert and no emergancy spillway. Culverts are famous for plugging up and there is no such thing as one big enough to handle extreme weather. Are you sure there isn't a spillway? I remember fishing along the dam when we were there, but I can't think of seeing a spillway. Now it seems odd, but to be honest, I was pretty overwhelmed with the place and missed more then I want to admint. hahaha

Eddie

 

[Bird]

This morning I got an e-mail from one of my brothers down near Waco telling me about the flooding there, several ponds in the RV park that were very low and now catfish are going from one to the other. The news media has talked about the flooding in my county (Denton County), but I don't know where.

And in the 2 or 3 days of clouds, light winds, and occasional rain, I got a grand total of about 2.1" of rain; 90% of which fell in the hours after dark night before last.

I definitely need to mow the yard this evening or tomorrow.

 

[jinman]

Jim,

Interesting that a 20 acre lake is only drained by a large culvert and no emergancy spillway. Culverts are famous for plugging up and there is no such thing as one big enough to handle extreme weather. Are you sure there isn't a spillway? I remember fishing along the dam when we were there, but I can't think of seeing a spillway. Now it seems odd, but to be honest, I was pretty overwhelmed with the place and missed more then I want to admint. hahaha

Eddie

Eddie, the culvert is enclosed by a box with slats. It is 36", but the pipes that carry overflow are just two 6" pipes. We went to see them this morning. The emergency spillway overflow for the lake is on the right side of the dam, looking from my place. If the water had risen another 6', it would have gone over that spillway. It would take a super flood to fill the lake to that point.

BTW, we measured the depth of our little pond today. It is back to maximum depth without overflowing and is 12' 6" at the deepest point. Now all I have to do is restock and hope we don't get another gully washer.


Bird: I can't imagine why there is so much difference in just about 45 miles, but the storms were moving almost due north and we just kept getting one heavy downpour after the other. As I said earlier, we measured 10" of rain in 5 days time.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Here on the east side of DFW we go two and a half inches in the last storm and about an inch in the first one. Of course we did get the tornado here in Wylie.

It was the second one to touch down here since we moved here in 92. That one, Mother's Day 93, killed one man in a mobile home and did a bunch of damage. This one affected fifty one homes, only five of them seriously enough to have them declared unlivable by the city code department. It was a light F1.

We became aware of it when son in law called from the west side of town to see if we were alright. They, son in law, daughter, two grandkids, were at a friend's house when it hit. The guys were in the den watching the Mavericks, kids in a bedroom playing, and the women in the kitchen talking. All of sudden stuff started flying into the house. No one was hurt but the kid's vehicles both suffered shingle and debris damage.

They were pretty shook up.

One of the things I've tried to teach the kids is their kids will learn how to react to a situation by watching their parents. So there I was trying to act cool and collected as she told me the details. LOL

 

[scott_vt]

Good Evening Jim,
I was intently watching the Weather Channel radar of that strong band of storms going through your area.What seemed strange was that it really didnt look all that wide from east to west but was very extensive from north to south. The funny thing about that front is that it was mainly moving north east so I would think that a lot of precipitation could fall in one spot with that storm track !

Anyways, incredible amount of water you have their ! Should help later on in the season when things get dried out ! Thanks for posting all those shots !