Mighty Mississippi
Published Monday, March 24, 2008
One thing ties the Miss-Lou together, keeps it ticking and makes us special.
And right now ... it's bursting at the seams.
When I left my dry, inland Mississippi hometown, I knew I wanted to live on a river somewhere. Every job interview I went on was in a river town. I just like them.
And I didn't necessarily plan on ending up along our country's mightiest river, but bigger is always better, right?
I love the river. I'm fascinated with its twists and turns and things like Giles Island. And I get even more excited at times like this ... when the water seems ready to gurgle up over the street at any moment.
Our grand river is less than two feet from flood stage right now. And we are more than a week away from its predicted crest.
Luckily for nearly all of Vidalia and Natchez, flooding isn't a big worry. Rivers can wreak havoc, destroy lives and property and be nothing to get excited over.
But it's the river geek in me that likes to study just how mighty that river can be.
In 1997 the river crested at 56.3. Silver Street had to be closed down at 52.5.
I didn't live here then, and I'm fascinated by the idea that the river could get so high.
The river made our community. And its surely strong enough to take it away.
I'm just glad most of us live 40 feet up.
Comments
Very good and interesting write-up!
Interesting article Ms. Finley.
Thanx.
Keep up the good work. Enjoyed it !
The river here has been a sort of touchstone for me ever since I arrived almost 6 years ago. The other day I was in that park on the bluff, just watching it and "thinking about stuff," when a couple walked past. "Great view, isn't it," the man said, smiling. "We tend to take it for granted around here." "I've been here 6 years," I said, "and still never tire of it." "Not taking it for granted yet?" he asked. I just shook my head.
Something about a river . . . I was living in Kansas City during the flood of '93. The day it crested, I (and a bunch of other folks) stood on a downtown bluff, looking down at the river and the airport on the other side. The airport was surrounded by a levee. Know how when you sink a bowl into a sink full of still water, and the water actually swells up above the lip of the bowl before spilling into it? That levee looked like that bowl--I swear the water level had crept slightly higher than the top of it.
That same year I walked out to the middle of one of the bridges up there, an older one with a walkway that was just a grate through which you could see the water below you--and, at that point, not very far below. Dizzying experience . . . I could feel the power of the brown swirling water through the metal bridge as I looked down. It was actually pretty cool.
People ask me why I stay here, and I tell them: "The climate, where I live, and the river--not necessarily in that order."
I spent my early childhood not far from the headwaters of the Missouri, in western Montana, my later childhood in Missouri, not far from the Missouri River, and a good part of my adult life in cities ON the Missouri River. Now I am here, and water rolling past Natchez now was rolling past my brother's house in St. Louis maybe 4-5 days ago; past Columbia a couple of days before that; within a few miles from my parents' place a few days before that; and was melting off Rocky Mountain peaks a few weeks before that.
Is it any wonder that rivers so often are used in literature as a metaphor for time and its passage?
Your comments were very useful and mind relaxing to hear Yank! Thanks for your thoughts!
You might find this book interesting: RISING TIDE: THE GREAT MISSISSIPPI FLOOD OF 1927 AND HOW IT CHANGED AMERICA by John M. Barry.
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