Chattanooga Flood Pictures

[Dozer]

Thought you all might be interested. We have had record flooding the past week or so, and we had some fun at work...

TVA Chickamauga Dam, Chattanooga, TN / March 7, 2003

Getting to work / March 8, 2003

Fun at work / March 8, 2003 (Yes, that's me)

Our warehouse / March 8, 2003

The water came right up to our door, but we didn't get any inside. We are feeling very fortunate, because it would have been a hellacious mess to clean up. Today the waters have receded and all that's left is a bunch of crap in the parking lot (including a couple of very large railroad ties). But we would rather clean up the parking lot than salvage a water-logged showroom.

 

[Tea]

Hoolie Doolie! Over here, the dams are bone dry. I'll see if I can dig out some pictures to show the contrast later on.

But we better get used to it: it's all part of the global climate change pattern, and this sort of event is going to get more and more common.

 

[honold]

But we better get used to it: it's all part of the global climate change pattern, and this sort of event is going to get more and more common.

much worse things happened to the midwest in 1993, and nothing remotely similar has happened since. i think blankly attributing this to global warming or whatever is a little jumpy.

 

[Tea]

Taken in isolation, Honold, just so. Indeed, I'd go a little further and call it just one step better than voodoo. But in the context of a great deal of very solid evidence from elsewhere, no. Here in Australia, the BOM and the CSIRO have done an enormous amount of research in the area - not surprisingly, as Australia is especially vulnerable to climate change - and the findings are compelling.

The bushfires earlier this year, for example, have been conclusively shown to have been made significantly worse by long-term climatic changes: not so much the lack of rainfall (which is something that happens quite often in any case, because of el nino) but because of the increased evaporation that follows from above drought-average temperatures. The ryer the bush, the faster it burns, and the harder it is to put out.

This year, despite the huge advances in fire-fighting technology (helicopters, bulldozers, aircraft, radio, detailed and accurate forecasts of wind speed and direction, etc.) and the enormous reduction in forested area (because of wholesale land clearing) we had the second-greatest area of land burned out ever.

The frequency of abnormal weather events has increased, and will continue to increase. If you are investing for your retirement, I'd advise that you avoid putting any money into, for example, insurance companies that provide flood, fire and hurricane cover: they will be paying out a great deal of money over the coming decades. (Or maybe, insurance companies being what they are, they will just find a way to increase premiums and restrict claims and make money anyway.)

 

[Howell]

They are saying we recieved between 5.5 and 8.5" of rain between here and Knoxville and we are downstream of Knoxville. The river crested at 6 feet above flood stage. Damage up to $17M.

The corporate headquarters for Olan Mills, a portrait photography studio, is swamped. Besides the custom and expensive equipment ruined, there is going to be a lot of nasty chemicals floating around.

A saving grace is that this happened so early in the spring. It could have happened later, when the reservoirs and tributaries are already at their summer time levels.

http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_36201.asp
http://chattanooga.us/flood2003/
http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_36203.asp
http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_36191.asp
http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_36176.asp
http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_36137.asp

 

[fool]

"chemicals floating around"
hmmm,
puts me in mind of this.

(The ouse is the river flowing through Lewes,(where I grew up))

 

[Groltz]

Had it happened later in the season, Doz, you could have put out the duck decoys.

 

[Dozer]

Heh, yeah, I can see it now--a bunch of our good ole boy contractors taking aim out the back warehouse doors--scary thought

 

[Howell]

Had it happened later in the season, Doz, you could have put out the duck decoys.

No joke. On my walk down by the pier after work I'd say I saw 250 people. 25 of them were fishing. Not only was the water too cloudy but the current was so strong no doubt some of them lost their pole when they hooked a tree.

 

[Mercutio]

Heh, yeah, I can see it now--a bunch of our good ole boy contractors taking aim out the back warehouse doors--scary thought

"Good ole boys" frighten me. Perhaps they wouldn't, if that image were not so easy for me to picture.

Me, I think everyone living south of the Mason-Dixon line is one date with their sister away from being an extra in "Deliverance II: Bobby's Revenge".

I base this on some truly scary visits to Nashville (Largest Christian Bookstore, Largest Adult Bookstore... but evidently, no regular bookstores. Locals could show me the streetcorner where Slim "Bullfrog" Whitman sold his body for beer money, but couldn't tell me where to buy a $#%# novel), North Carolina (where it's legal to hunt from the back of a truck), and Kentucky (where "You Know Your a RedNeck If..." is considered a guide to a better lifestyle).

 

[Howell]

I'm sure they were just in awe of your sophistication. Either that or confused by it.

 

[timwhit]

Heh, yeah, I can see it now--a bunch of our good ole boy contractors taking aim out the back warehouse doors--scary thought

"Good ole boys" frighten me. Perhaps they wouldn't, if that image were not so easy for me to picture.

Me, I think everyone living south of the Mason-Dixon line is one date with their sister away from being an extra in "Deliverance II: Bobby's Revenge".

I base this on some truly scary visits to Nashville (Largest Christian Bookstore, Largest Adult Bookstore... but evidently, no regular bookstores. Locals could show me the streetcorner where Slim "Bullfrog" Whitman sold his body for beer money, but couldn't tell me where to buy a $#%# novel), North Carolina (where it's legal to hunt from the back of a truck), and Kentucky (where "You Know Your a RedNeck If..." is considered a guide to a better lifestyle).

All this from the guy from the Klu Klux Klan state...

 

[Mercutio]

I make no claim on Indiana. I spent the first half of my life in Illinois. And no, I don't know what a "Hoosier" is, either.

For those that don't know, Indiana, as a state, was once largely governed by members of the Ku Klux Klan. It probably still is - that would explain local political phenomenon Dan Quayle, but at least they're more secretive about it.

 

[Fushigi]

As a native of the Hoser, umm, Hoosier state, I can't say much. KKK activity is still prevalent, although mostly in the smaller towns like Martinsville (one-time home of the Grand Dragon or whatever stupid name they have for their leader) and rural areas. I haven't lived in the state for a decade so I can't speak to the politics.

Hoosier, that's what they named the damn dumb domed stadium in Indy after before RCA spent a few $. Domed stadiums themselves are a fairly neat engineering task, but when all they bring to the city are the Colts it hardly seems worthwhile.

- Fushigi

 

[blakerwry]

here's some pictures I've been taking of the local storms (the other day we had 80 tornados in a sinlge 24 hour period.

There have been some much nicer shots I would have loved to take, unfortunately I don't always carry a camera when I go out.

 

[blakerwry]

and today...

 

[Tea]

Blake, those are great pictures. Really gives the feel of it.

 

[blakerwry]

Thanks, I like taking pictures... although i wish i could figure out how to get this thing in panorama mode... of course, I guess i could just zoom out and then crop later... but darn it, I want panorama.

 

[Dozer]

For those of you with intermittent problems seeing the images at the beginning of this post, I apologize. I'm in the process of repairing a crashed server. I think I finally have everything working again.

 

[Tea]

Wha's da mattter? Got water in it?

 

[Mercutio]

For those of you with intermittent problems seeing the images at the beginning of this post, I apologize. I'm in the process of repairing a crashed server. I think I finally have everything working again.

Don't feel bad. I spent most of the weekend without power, and working at businesses that had lost power as well. Amazing how much stuff can break when power flips on and off every five or ten minutes.

 

[mubs]

Why're you having power probs, Merc? I thought power in the U.S. was something you took for granted - like the air we breathe.

 

[Mercutio]

We've had severe thunderstorms for about the last 10 days. Infrastructure is generally really good, but one or two lightning strikes in the wrong place(s) and suddenly everything is hosed.

 

[Dozer]

Wha's da mattter? Got water in it?

Yeah, and a darned carp!

Actually, had a hard drive failure. That was the minor part of the repair. Reconfiguring everything was the hard part, because I couldn't remember some of the parameters I had set in Apache. But I'm on the road to recovery now.

 

[blakerwry]

Wha's da mattter? Got water in it?

Yeah, and a darned carp!

Actually, had a hard drive failure. That was the minor part of the repair. Reconfiguring everything was the hard part, because I couldn't remember some of the parameters I had set in Apache. But I'm on the road to recovery now.

heh, i cought a carp with my hands once, noisiest little sucker you ever heard.

 

[Tea]

Iz this the place to comment on the variation amongst hard drives with respect to the wet ztuff? No? What the heck, I'll do it anyway.

A Barracuda, of course, would have been right at home. (And taken care of that carp for you.)

A Raptor, on the other hand, would not. (Unless it was either an Osprey or a Sea Eagle sort of raptor, or possibly even a Swamp Harrier.)

Unless the flood was very small, a Fireball would doubtless have been a fizzer.

A Peach would rot.

A Bigfoot would get athelete's foot.

A Caviar would be OK, unless it got eaten by the Barracuda. Or, of course, the carp.

errr .... shall I go on?

 

[blakerwry]

...A deathstar would certainly have not feared the flood in its high orbit


an atlas would have to be updated to reflect the geographical changes.

 

[Dozer]

With the destruction that flood waters can bring, there is quite a beautiful side to the high waters...

This was taken the Saturday after the flooding, at a nearby state park, Cloudland Canyon (I've never seen the falls that are below me in the picture, and I've hiked there quite a bit):

And this, from the same park: