The Southern Maine floods....

Here in New England, we're in the midst of a soaking storm, it's been raining heavily the past 3+ days, Mass, and NH have already declared states of emergency, Maine has also declared a SoE, many places are experiencing low-level flooding.....

No, it's nothing compared to Katrina, but bear in mind, New England hasn't had major, widespread flooding in a long time, so it's new to us....

This HomePage I made shows Bartlett's Brook, a little brook that runs under the access road to the house, at the start of flooding, it's starting to erode the roadbed under the pavement, and there's more rain on the way, at least until Wednesday/Thursday, this is just the start....

Bartlett's Brook has *NEVER* flooded in the 35+ years we've lived here, this is a *first*

I also have some QuickTime movies of the flooded road (Dialup Warning, 5 MB)....
Torrential flow from the Bartlett Culvert
A pan of the flooded area, what appears to be a lake is actually flooded dry land, the right side of the culvert is actually a good 15 feet below the surface
Here you can see the start of erosion above the left culvert

Neat pictures and videos. Yes, I'm near the coast of MA where some cities have received over 11" of rain since Friday night and there is wide spread flooding in some communities.

About a foot and more to come. Not good, guys.

MacTech -

Bartlett's Brook looks like it wants to eat that road. Is there any alternative access to your home?

there's 3 roads that feed to the house, and all 3 will take me to work with varying delays, Bartletts is the most direct route

amusingly enough, the other road to the southwest of the house also has a body of water, Shorey Pond, and *IT* was over the road last night, quite heavilly at that, at least 3-4" over the road, today it was back down behind it's banks, but it's close, 4-5 more inches of rain and *it* will go over again

the road to the southeast of us goes over a salt marsh, and they just reinforced that bridge last year, in theory it *could* be flooded over and damaged, but the marsh has *NEVER* flooded over, a testament to the power of undisturbed wetlands.....

in theory, if we lost the road over Bartlett Brook and Shorey Pond, i could still get out over the marsh road, just a minor inconvenience

I'm just outside of Boston and I currently have about 6" of water in the basement(and thats after pumping all day long!). Near riot at Sears because the crowd of 250 people had to fight over 20 pumps and wet/dry vacs. This really sucks and I can only imagine what it was like in New Orleans. Lesson learned today...have plenty of water pumps on hand because your basement will flood someday!

Regards,
Flavio

Flavio -

I read that hundreds had to leave their homes due to sewage sytems being overcome and backing up into houses. Shew. That can't be good either. I hope you have adequate equipment to handle the water. Sounds like you do.

MacTech -

Very good. Hopefully you don't lose any access roads.

"a testament to the power of undisturbed wetlands...."

Amen.

Well, we *LOST* Bartletts Brook road, half the road (the culvert side) has collapsed, it looks like a miniature Niagra Falls, the road's a complete loss, there's still the right side of the road that's in (mostly) one piece, but the left lane is *GONE*

Heres three more QuickTimes of the destroyed road area
http://homepage.mac.com/mactechg4/.Movies/Flood3.MOV
http://homepage.mac.com/mactechg4/.Movies/Flood4.MOV
http://homepage.mac.com/mactechg4/.Movies/Flood5.MOV

i'm at work, on the drive in there were no less than *three* areas with flooding over the road that were simply low lying areas, no rivers/streams/lakes involved...

the Cocheco river is right next to my work, it's about 6 inches below flooding.....

*AND IT'S ONLY LOW TIDE....* the tide is due in in about 4 hours from now.....

Latest update;
Pictures from Dover, NH, One Washington Center (Clarostat)

The Cocheco has officially flooded the far banks, the Dover Indoor Pool parking lot and Henry Law Park are submerged, and it's damn close to flooding Clarostat's parking lot as well...

Quicktimes;
http://homepage.mac.com/mactechg4/.Movies/Doverflood.MOV
http://homepage.mac.com/mactechg4/.Movies/Doverflood2.MOV
http://homepage.mac.com/mactechg4/.Movies/Doverflood3.MOV
http://homepage.mac.com/mactechg4/.Movies/Doverflood4.MOV