11/16/2021 Jason Drives Us To Downtown Mount Vernon To See Flooding Skagit River

In the above video my Favorite Nephew Jason drives south on I-5, beside the flooding Skagit River.

And then Jason takes us to a closeup look at the Mount Vernon Skagit Riverfront's first major test of the new flood wall.

Record Storm Tips Semi-Truck On Washington's Deception Pass Bridge

Yesterday, November 15, 2021 wind, rain and flooding pummeled my old Washington state home zone. Late in the day on YouTube, via Thelma McNutty, formerly of the Skagit Valley, I watched video of a semi-truck toppled over by the wind whilst driving over the Deception Pass Bridge. 

In the video you can clearly see the hurricane like wind's effect on trees and water. The video also shows Whidbey Island's waterfront being flooded by the storm surge.

Today the Skagit River may reach a record breaking high. Last night I saw the Skagit Valley's other river, the Samish River, was also in extreme mode and two of my high school classmates had had their farmhouse surrounded. They managed to get their vehicles to high ground, but did not have enough time to rescue hay bails, which soon floated away.

Last night Linda Lou sent me video she took whilst standing behind the downtown Mount Vernon flood wall. The river looks more dangerous than I remember ever seeing it. 

The crest of the flood may top downtown Mount Vernon's new flood wall today. Seattle TV stations have been in place for two days to cover it. I can get the Seattle stations on my TV, so that should be interesting.

Nephew Jason is expected to be sending photo documentation later in the day.

And here is the video Linda Lou shot yesterday from behind the downtown Mount Vernon flood wall...

Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds Is Not In Lucy Park

After a virtual yoga session with Thelma McNutty this morning I was off to Lucy Park for a warm communing with nature. 

There is a possibility today will reach a record breaking high. 

The first time I visited Lucy Park I parked near that which you see above. At that point in time I did not know why Lucy Park was so named. Thus, seeing the above I thought the park's name might somehow be derived from the famous Lucy archeological dig in Ethiopia, back in the 1970s. 

But, alas, Lucy Park's name has nothing to do with the famous Ethiopian Lucy. You can read all about that Lucy in the Wikipedia Lucy Australopithecus article.

An interesting blurb from the Wikipedia Lucy article..

"Lucy" acquired her name from the 1967 song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" by the Beatles, which was played loudly and repeatedly in the expedition camp all evening after the excavation team's first day of work on the recovery site. After public announcement of the discovery, Lucy captured much public interest, becoming a household name at the time.

There is no explanatory signage explaining what looks like an archeological dig in Lucy Park. Maybe it's there and I missed it.

Back during the dinosaur era the Texas region played host to a lot of those long gone reptiles. You can see some of their remains, well, fossilized footprints, at Dinosaur Valley State Park, near Glen Rose and the Fossil Rim Wildlife Center.

It is time for lunch, walking around Lucy Park, after strenuous virtual yoga with McNutty, works up an appetite...

Pineapple Express Atmospheric River Deluging My Old Washington Home Zone

A Pineapple Express, also known as an Atmospheric River, is currently dropping a lot of water on Western Washington. I can not remember if it is in an El Nino or El Nina year that a tropical air mass gets over heated and over saturated with water, and then heads north to drench the west coast.

My Favorite Nephew Jason (FNJ) emailed the photos you see above and below, arriving in my email inbox this morning.

I believe the above photo shows the current Skagit River status in downtown Mount Vernon, while the below photo shows preparations for the disaster flood of 1995..

The text in the email from FNH---

FUD -

We are still on high alert here in the valley.   The 1990 and 1995 floods were at measured depth of over 37 feet in MV.

Projections for Tuesday evening's depth are for about 36 feet in MV.

I believe the below flood photo depicting the old sandbag method was from 1995.

Hope you are high and dry in Texas. 

-FNJ

I think the 1995 Pineapple Express is the one that sank one of the Lake Washington floating bridges. I remember watching the late night news out of Seattle. They broke in live from Mount Vernon, showing a lot of people filling sand bags by the downtown library. Showing servicemen from the Whidbey Navy base helping. Asking anyone who could do so to come downtown to help.

And so I woke up the house and we headed to downtown Mount Vernon. I had never seen anything like it. So many people feverishly working in emergency mode. Soon I was part of  a brigade passing sandbags to be stacked in a long line to attempt to stop the river from flooding downtown Mount Vernon, which, when the Skagit is in flood mode, downtown Mount Vernon is like New Orleans. As in it is below the level of the river.

By about three in the morning the sandbag wall was complete. I went home, then returned to downtown Mount Vernon ahead of the predicted 11am crest of the flood. People were blocked from entering the downtown area, but you could see the river, and downtown, from the hills due east of downtown. If I remember right I was on the old Highway 99 bridge which crosses I-5, along with a lot of other people. 

Around 11am you could see the river reaching the top of the sandbag wall, and seeming to start to spill over in spots.

And then, suddenly, the river backed off, retreated, about a foot. People were collectively thinking and saying what the hell just happened.

Within an hour or so we knew what had happened. A dike had breached down river, a break of a couple hundred feet. This quickly flooded Fir Island. An actual island (not an imaginary Fort Worth, Texas type island) made so due to being surrounded by two branches of the Skagit River. 

The Fir Island disaster triggered all sorts of emergency action, including loud sirens. Soon we were seeing things like cows being rescued by helicopter. As in a cow in some sort of harness dangling from a helicopter. 

Before the Fir Island dike breech could be fixed, and before the Mount Vernon sandbag wall was taken down, two weeks later it happened again. Another flood, this time easily re-flooding Fir Island due to the broken dike.

I remember when it was eventually allowed driving around Fir Island seeing the destruction. I'd never seen anything like it before.

There were a few more floods where a sandbag wall was used to protect downtown Mount Vernon. And then it was decided there needed to be a better solution.

A better solution to a real flood problem, not a goofy incompetent solution to an imaginary flood problem, such as what I have witnessed in Fort Worth for a couple decades now, expecting the rest of America to pay a billion bucks, or more, for what the Fort Worth schemers claim is a vitally needed flood control project, but is, in reality a corrupt money making scheme geared to line the pockets of those foisting the project on the public.

Meanwhile, in Mount Vernon, Washington, it was decided to build a new flood control system, a temporary wall which can be installed in a few hours by a few installers. Not an army of sandbaggers.

That is the new flood wall you see in the photo at the top. It is part of Mount Vernon's rebuild of its riverfront into a sort of riverwalk. If I remember right this cost around $25 million. I don't remember what the funding mechanism was.

Likely there was a bond election with the public voting to support the project. I do know this flood control project began well after Fort Worth began its inept Trinity River Vision's imaginary flood control project, with the Mount Vernon flood control long completed, whilst the Fort Worth "vitally needed" imaginary flood control project to control floods in an area that has not flooded in well over a half century due to flood control levees already installed, had basically not even started, with nothing done other than three simple little bridges built over dry land, taking seven years to build, with the hope that one day a cement lined ditch will be built under the bridges, creating an imaginary island, and providing that vitally not needed flood control.

Fort Worth expects federal funding to pay for its not needed flood control. To that end a local congresswoman's unqualified son was given the job of being executive director of the project, to motivate his mother to get that federal funding.

Eventually it became obvious the congresswoman's son was inept at the job he was being paid well over $200,000 a year to do no one knows what, the congresswoman's son was moved to a new job, where he could do no harm, still paid that ridiculously high salary, while a person actually qualified to oversee a public works project was hired.

I am almost 100% certain that no local politician's son, or daughter, was hired by the Skagit River Vision, to motivate that politician to secure funding for the Skagit River flood control project.

Seeing Underside Of Deception Pass Bridge Takes Us To The Underside Of Fort Worth's New Bridges

Saw that which you see above this morning on Facebook. Instantly knew what I was looking at, as would most anyone who has lived in the Skagit and Island County area of the Puget Sound region of Western Washington.

I walked by this scene dozens of times when I lived in the neighborhood, passing under the Deception Pass Bridge on the way to hike up adjacent Goose Rock.

The water below is known as Deception Pass, so named because it is a connecting passage between two different tidal zones. When the differential between the two tidal zones is at an extreme it causes the water to pass through Deception Pass with great force, so much so that it is virtually impossible for a boat to go against the tide.

Literally.

Looking at this photo it appears that a tide change is underway, but not quite of the extreme sort. I have seen the extreme sort a time or two, and it is something you do not forget.

On my Washington blog I have blogged about the Deception Pass Bridge several times...

Deception Pass Bridge Connecting Whidbey Island with Fidalgo Island

and

Deception Pass & the Washington State Parks

and
July 31 Deception Pass Bridge 75th Anniversary Celebration Picnic

The Deception Pass Bridge was built in less than a year, way back in the early 1930s. Built over that deep, at times fast moving water of Puget Sound. 

Such may be among the many reasons I have found it to be bizarre to witness slow motion bridge building in the Texas town called Fort Worth.

Seven years to build three simple freeway overpass like bridges over dry land.

Touted by local politicians, and those building the bridges, that the bridges were being built over dry land to save time and money. As if it were an option to dig the cement lined ditch first, then fill it with water, then take even longer than seven years to build the bridges over the ditch.

Because, if it took seven years to build these bridges, in time saving mode, how long would have taken if a water filled ditch was in the way? 

And how is it that these propaganda spewers have gotten away with that "built over dry land to save time and money" nonsense for so long?

Either the propaganda spewers know the population to whom they spew the nonsense is too gullible and stupid to figure out the claim is idiotic.

Or it is the propaganda spewers who are idiotically stupid and actually believe their bridge building over dry land to save time and money nonsense is factual.

Due to all the dumb stuff I have read the propaganda spewers spew I opt to believe it is the latter explanation. That they are so idiotically stupid they don't understand that which they spew is idiotically stupid. We have seen plenty of evidence of this.

As in, have you watched or read a J.D. Granger interview?

So, now that those bridges are open and carrying traffic, is the ditch digging underway?

It must be, because, way back when this century began, what was then simply called the Trinity River Vision was touted as being a vitally needed flood control and economic development scheme, developed in an area which has not flooded for well over a half century due to flood control levees already in place.

Surely if this is such a vitally needed plan a local funding mechanism must have been in place before the project began, you know, with the public voting to support a bond issue to pay for the alleged vitally needed flood control and economic development scheme.

Surely no town wearing its big city pants would rely on hoping to secure federal funding for such a vitally needed project...

Sikes Lake Litter Aftermath With Video Of Last Night's Storm

Last night's predicted Severe Thunderstorm arrived soon after the sun ceased its illumination duties for the day. All but one possible predicted element arrived. Strong wind, gusts, hail, lightning, thunder and rain. But, no tornadoes.

I was in my slumber chamber chatting with Thelma McNutty when the storm arrived. It was loud. I shot a short video out of my slumber chamber window. You can view that below.

By morning the sky was back blue. There was a lot of flotsam blown about, and my usual route to my motorized motion device was flooded.

I drove that motorized motion device to Sikes Lake about an hour before noon. As you can see, above, the Blue Bayou of Sikes Lake has been recharged with new water. 

And Sikes Lake, in addition to the new water, also had some litter delivered.

The above was one of three flotillas of litter seen on Sikes Lake today. When this happens the floating litter usually quickly gets removed.

One benefit of a downpour, pertaining to Sikes Lake, is the downpour washes away the accumulated goose poop that one tries to avoid whilst walking the paved trail around the lake.

Those buildings you see at the end of the lake are three Hiltons. On the left it is called Hilton Homewood Suites. Next to that is Hilton Home2 Suites and Tru by Hiltion. The last time I saw Elsie Hotpepper in person she was staying at the Hilton Homewood Suites. The Hilton Home2 Suites and Tru by Hilton have been built since Elsie Hotpepper last visited.

The aforementioned Blue Bayou of Sikes Lake is a short distance to the left, or south, of Hilton Homewood Suites.

And now that video of last night's storm....

Lucy Leaves Turning Color Before Severe Thunderstorm

With a Severe Thunderstorm impending, along with a strong wind blowing, I opted out again of the bike ride option for acquiring my daily dose of endorphins via aerobic activity.

And instead, once again, drove to Lucy Park for some nature communing, along with multiple other communers, including disc golfers throwing into the wind and pecan pickers dodging the flying discs.

The above photo is making the sky look way less threatening than it actually looked. Just remembered, at this point in the long walk the sun burst through the clouds, quickly amping up the temperature.

Today was the first day that leaves changing color has been seen by my eyes, as witnessed by the tree above.

A half hour past noon, the sky is darkening. I suppose the afternoon thunderstorm can start up any time now. The prediction is strong winds, severe thunderstorms, rain, hail, and possible tornadoes...

Senior Citizen Chauffeuring Selfie Practice With McNutty Guidance

This morning I did my semi-regular good deed of driving an elderly senior citizen to a doctor appointment.

Whilst that doctor visit was going on I remained in the driver's seat, reading.

And when I took a break from reading I worked on perfecting the art of taking a smiling selfie photo.

Thelma McNutty has been regularly critiquing the photos I take, regularly generously offering unsolicited advice.

The smiling selfie you see here was the best of today's training session.

So, my regular morning routine got a bit messed up today. I am sure I will eventually recover.

The elderly senior citizen returned from his visit with his doctor in a much better mood than before the doctor visit. Apparently a lab test showed his AC1 number was good. That is some sort of diabetes measurement.

After the doctor visit it was off to another part of town, to a pharmacy, to pick up a new prescription.

My Arizona sister provided this type chauffeur service to my mom and dad for years. I don't think her siblings have thanked their sister enough for having done this.

Rare Hike To Summit Of Mount Wichita With Big Surf

With wind strongly gusting I did not feel like rolling my bike's wheels anywhere. Instead I rolled my motorized motion device to the base of majestic Mount Wichita.

It had been well over a year since I climbed to the summit of Mount Wichita. I thought maybe I might be in better shape than the last time I climbed this mountain, and that the climb might be easier.

Well, it wasn't. Easy, that is. I don't remember when last I had myself breathing so hard and my heart pumping so fast. Plus size was the big dose of endorphins which quickly arrived.

In the above view from the summit of Mount Wichita we are looking southeast, towards the Lake Wichita Dam.

The trail I took to the summit is thick with foliage. The above photo is looking south down another of the summit access trails. The photo does not do justice to how steep this is.

No, that is not me in a long distance selfie heading down the trail I just showed you. 

You can see via the tall waves crashing to shore that a strong wind was blowing. When the McNutty woman next visits she should bring her surfboard with her and show the locals how to ride the waves.

So there you have my exciting second Monday of the 2021 version of November. The new month is already almost a third gone...

The Shadow Of The Lucy Park Thin Man Finds No Pecans

I was over dressed for this morning's Sunday walk in the park.

By the time I got to my Lucy Park parking spot I took off one upper layer.

When the temperature is in the 70s one should not be wearing sweat pants is the lesson of the day.

For today's Lucy Park walk I opted for the backwoods unpaved option.

That option is the only location in Lucy Park where I have had a snake encounter. And it was a BIG one, the type of which I could not determine before it slithered out of sight or camera range.

I think with the temperature in the 70s that may be warm enough for the cold blooded monsters to slither. But none were seen slithering today.

Eventually the unpaved trail takes you to the location above. What looks like some sort of double cross, Or a gallows, is actually, I think, part of an old, long gone, suspension bridge across the Wichita River. There is a similar structure on the other side of the river.

You can sort of make out the unpaved trail in the above photo.

I don't know what type trees these are, other than to assume they are not pecan trees. Because this time of year you see people busy harvesting pecans that have fallen to the ground. Today there were multiple pecan pickers in the more developed part of Lucy Park. Yesterday I saw a couple pecan pickers picking pecans off the ground by Sikes Lake.

All this pecan talk makes me want to have a slice of pecan pie...