Monday, September 15, 2008

Record rains in the region

The commuter train was crowded as usual this Monday morning. Sitting on the upper deck, everyone was minding their own business, snoozing, meditating, working, reading the paper -- until we neared Des Plaines, Illinois. There we cross the Des Plaines River, and with the record rainfall we had over the weekend, I knew there would be dramatic flooding there. Everyone paused in what they were doing and turned around to look out the window. There was a chorus of quiet exclamations.

I found a video someone shot from the train yesterday, coming in the opposite direction, and it gives you an excellent idea of the flooding and people's reactions to it. The river peaked in Des Plaines at ten feet.

We set a Chicago area record for rainfall in a calendar day with 6.64 inches on Saturday. Since the rain continued through the weekend, total rainfall for September so far is 12.61 inches. (The 1961 record was 14.17 inches.)

I was in Northwest Indiana over the weekend, and the rain severely affected low-lying areas there. One big consequence was that they closed one of the two east-west interstate highways that cross the area. Here are a couple more photo collections: Selil and releeh.

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