More Flood Pics

I took more pictures when we were in Ottawa this evening. It began raining around 2:30 and is kind of raining off and on. Hopefully it won't last much longer, because I don't think we can handle what that rain would bring. Madie and Noah really wanted to see what was flooded and so did Pete. So, I ran Noah over to the dentist (Pete was already there getting his teeth cleaned) and then took the girls over to the Y again. We ran into a few people we know from church there. One of my friends, Betty, said that the last big flood was in 1982 and this one was even worse than that one was. Wow! So, Madie got to really see what it was like and was excited to see how much water had covered the Riverwalk. She and Livie splashed around a bit, then I took her to dance class. After that I met back up with Pete and Noah at the dentists and we headed out to look at all the stuff. We went a couple places I had not gone this morning. Down by the Illinois River there is a school. It's completely flooded out and they've cancelled school the whole week. You can see in the pictures how completely covered the school is right now. It's going to take some time for the waters to go down and I'm sure they'll have quite a clean-up in store for them once it's down. We walked down a bit farther to the riverside and took some pictures. You can see how high the water is next to the light pole. That's up on a road beside the river. And, it's up that high. Noah just thought it was all so cool!! He was jumping around and couldn't believe how it looked. The funniest thing to me though was how many people were out. There were several out looking at the rivers and stuff this morning, but when we went again, it was after work was let out for most people and the river was just lined with people. I'd bet there were hundreds of people in all different areas of the river - taking video and pictures. It's a pretty big deal! We got a call from someone from church tonight, letting us know that if we wanted to volunteer, they are planning on sandbagging through the night to help keep the waters from getting to the high school and the homes around there. With the additional rains today, there's a real threat there. It's not been raining hard, but anything else at this point can threaten those areas, I think. Anyway, the last picture is over by the hospital. You can see how the river has reached the train bridge there. The lower level of the hospital parking garage is submerged. I'll be interested to see if anything happens after the Illinois River peaks and how much damage has been done to those areas.