May 15, 2006
Flooding
As you may have heard, we've had dangerous levels of rain across the state. So far, Milford is fairing well, but I've included a bit of video to show how things look. Since most of the clips are ~1.7-2.0 megabytes, broadband internet (or a lot of patience) is recommended.
- Our brook — The brook on the south end of our property. Normally it looks pretty tame and the kids sit along its banks and wade their feet in it. That stump of a bush you see in the lower center of the video was completely under water yesterday.
- Overflowing banks — The banks of the Souhegan River (1/4 mile from our house). Normally residents drive and park in this area to walk down to the river.
- Looking upstream — Normally the Souhegan river is so low, it's rocks poke out from it. See also here and here.
- Looking downstream — Walking to the other side of the Memorial bridge, you now see the current as it heads towards Milford center.
These videos show images from this morning around 7am just before I head for the office. Things looked higher early yesterday evening when we were returning home from an afternoon of swimming with the kids at the Merrimack YMCA pool followed by dinner at Bentleys Roast Beef. New Hampshire's largest television network, WMUR, has let viewers submit photos. A dam has broken in the town of Webster and the town could lose its lake. Milford's schools were closed today, as was the case in many neighboring towns. WMUR is carrying several flood related stories.
Aside from two traffic jams in Massachusetts today, I was lucky that my commute route wasn't blocked. There was one point on route 119 just before 495 when the floodplain's water levels came quite close to going over the street but not quite. Who knows whether it'll stay contained the rest of this week.