Hurricane Camille

TV news touted how many feet the James River was over flood stage at the Westham gauge. People love disaster, particularly when it can be viewed from inside the car. (Is this Charles Fishburne?)
traffic
The citizenry of Richmond head out Route 147, through River Road shopping center, past the Esso, crossing to the southside via the Hugenot Bridge.
Nothing says flood like livestock and houses floating down the river. I didn’t get those pictures this day.
Bathing in the e.coli.

Because the hurricane was expected to quickly dissipate over land, few were prepared for the flash flooding.[32] Arriving in Virginia on the evening of August 19, Camille was no longer a hurricane, but it carried high amounts of moisture and contained sufficient strength and low pressure to pull in additional moisture.

A widespread area of western and central Virginia received over 8 inches (200 mm) of rain from Camille’s remains, leading to significant flooding across the state. A total of 153 people lost their lives from blunt trauma sustained during mountain slides, related to the flash flooding, not drowning.[33] More than 123 of these deaths, including 21 members of one family, the Huffmans, were in Nelson County. Seven victims of the hurricane in Nelson County remain unidentified, as well as one in Albemarle County. [34] Avalanches occurred on hillsides with a slope greater than 35 percent.[33] In Nelson County, the number of deaths amounted to over one percent of the county’s population.[35] The worst of the damage was reported in Massies Mill, Woods Mill, Roseland, Bryant, Tyro, Montebello, Lovingston, Norwood, Rockfish, and along the Davis and Muddy creeks.[33] The James and Tye rivers crested well above flood stage in many areas, including a record high of 41.3 feet (12.6 m) at Columbia. Hurricane Camille caused more than $140 million of damage (1969 dollars) in Virginia.[5][6] Camille was considered one of the worst natural disasters in central Virginia’s recorded history–Wikipedia

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My sister checking the mail. The river is usually 800 feet away.

uneasy marriage

CA stack CO tracks
It struck me this morning that the park I walk through owes much of its existence to successive technologies. The streetcar technology (smokestack above) has been abandoned. The other technologies that undergird this public space are sewage collection and high voltage electrical transmission.
dog running in snow woods
Rivanna trail, winter weather.
Geology and topography have graced the park with a river. So far, in our political wisdom, we have discouraged building in the river’s channel.
The industrial and the natural features maintain an uneasy balance, remarkably it feels like a park.