Great Flood of Jan. 2009

I didn' t have my camera with me last week but apparently my brother did:

(pictures by Patrick)

These were taken at River Road Park (east end, at "new" Hackberry RD and Jack Warner PKWY (aka River RD). It's a lovely sunset - I really like the lampposts in the middle of the river. I'm afraid the view of across the river isn't great but those houses are usually ~10 feet above river level.

When my boss and his wife were house hunting their realtor tried to convince them that that neighborhood was above the 100-yr flood plain. It may be, on the flood maps, but River RD has been underwater in the not too distant past and those houses are lower than the road. Never mind that they are CLEARLY on the flood plain - there is no natural levee there. Luckily for the home owners, the Black Warrior River has swampy banks that can be flooded down stream.

This is the best picture I have right this second of what that usually looks like.

I'll try and take some pictures this week of the flood photos to show the difference.

Anybody Seen Noah?

A comment on Whatever sent me to look at the flood map for where I live. As I'd already figured out, Noah will be floating by before my house floods. Well, maybe my house will flood but my parents live on top of the hill so the animals and I can just walk over there.

My house (and my parents for that matter) is in a X zone. On the map there are two X zones. Definition one is "areas of 500-year flood; areas of 100-year flood with average depths of less than 1 foot or with drainage areas less than 1 square mile; and areas protected by levees from 100-year floods." Definition two is "areas determined to be outside 500-year floodplain. I'm definitely not behind a levee; any of the others could apply but I don't think I live in a 100-year floodplain. What I found most interesting was the existence of two definitions for zone X.

The viewable map is a scan of a black and white map. Therefore, I choose to assume there is some stippling or light grey color, not picked up by the scanner, that would show which of the two zone Xs an area is, but why not pick another letter for one of them. As one who makes maps as part of my job, this is bad map making. I was taught to make labels, names, colors, etc. distinct. At least as much as possible, sometimes historical uses or names limit one. I was also taught to keep in mind reproducibility and the possibility that a color map may be printed B&W. It isn't possible to be perfect (too many dash patterns can make one go crazy!) and I don't know how old the actual map is (possibly before color printing or scanning was economic). Maybe the two zone Xs have always been used. If so shame on flood mappers of old (for starting this) and new (for continuing). Yes, in the long run the difference is very small between the designations. But it still an iffy choice.