Spencer Jack Wishing Us A Mighty Fine Fall From The Skagit River Vision

On the day before the Autumnal Equinox, Spencer Jack took his dad to Ground Zero of the Downtown Mount Vernon Revitalization Project, also known as the Skagit River Vision, to take a Happy First Day of Fall photo for his Great Uncle.

Spencer Jack is standing before a Get Ready sign which depicts what the Skagit River Vision will look like when it can totally be seen in a week or two.

If that sign behind Spencer Jack were not blocking the view you would be looking at the signature bridge which crosses the Skagit River, connecting West Mount Vernon to Downtown Mount Vernon. That signature bridge was built in less than four years and was built over a wide, fast moving body of water, with water elevation changes, cyclically throughout the day, to varying degrees, due to tidal action a few miles downstream.

When the Skagit River Vision's re-built riverfront opens to the public the public will be enjoying a plaza which dwarfs a recently opened plaza in another town about which I am familiar, a town with a population about 25 times bigger than Mount Vernon's.

I am still unclear how the new flood wall works. The flood wall is the key ingredient which instigated the Downtown Mount Vernon Revitalization Project, also known as the Skagit River Vision. When the Skagit River goes into flood mode Downtown Mount Vernon finds itself in a New Orleans type situation,  as in below the level of the river.

A big sandbag wall has saved Downtown Mount Vernon multiple times from a raging Skagit River. The big sandbag wall took hours to build, with hundreds helping. It takes just a few people a few minutes to put up the new flood wall.

Knowing what it is like to have lived in a town with serious flood issues, seriously addressed, is part of what makes it perplexing to me to currently live in a town with imaginary flood issues, goofily, irresponsibly addressed.

Yes, perplexing.

Very perplexing.....