Tuesday, May 26, 2015

News from the Fort


It had rained and rained and rained and rained here.  Something like 13 inches this month so far, I heard.  (Don't take me seriously, I don't have an actual source for that.  But a fuckton of rain, anyway.)  My yard is a swamp, and the Arkansas River is outside its banks.  All up and down the river, towns have flooded out.

Our house is on the higher end of town, so
we're not likely to get flooded out; Northside of town, which is where the poor/ish folk live, that's the side of town that's at risk. The city has installed flood gates there.

These gates don't look so impressive to me, a citizen of New Orleans, but maybe they actually work.  It continues to rain torrentially.

Meanwhile! In non-weather-related news! Tomorrow is the last day of high school for my kid. "Do you want to go back to high school next year?" Dr. Skull asked her this morning, as they were getting ready to leave for school.

"What?" she said grumpily.

"Or would you rather stay home and be home schooled? Do you like high school?"

"I hate high school."

"So...you don't want to go back?"

"Of course I don't want to go back.  But I'm going back.  I want to get into a good college."

"You'll love college," he said consolingly.

Monday is my first day of Summer Teaching.  Comp II.  Only one class, and I might not be teaching Summer II.  Less money, but also less work.  I'm trying to see the silver lining here, people.

Here are the vaunted flood gates:




...okay?



2 comments:

Bardiac said...

I don't get how flood gates work. Is there like a wall surrounding part of town or something? And the flood gates allow people to get through normally?

delagar said...

There's a street going through there normally. I haven't been down to that part of town to look, but I'm guessing they've put up a wall all along those streets, to keep the river from flooding the town past that point?

But IDK how exactly it will work, b'c there are buildings to each side of that street. Does the wall run through the buildings? Also, obviously, the wall can only go so far -- what happens at each end of the wall? (Of course, Fort Smith is a very small city. Maybe we're just routing the water around the city?)

Inquiring minds want to know!