Evansville Flooding

I had to ride my bike out to Bob's Gym West to meet the HR guy and fill out my paperwork to start my Group Kick classroom instruction. With the weather being nice (low 50's), I figured it was a nice day to get some miles on the bike. I checked out the route -- I am not too familiar with the west side -- and decided to ride the new Greenway passage, which is on the way.

I never took into account the amount of rain that we have received here in the last couple of weeks. As far as elevation goes, Evansville is pretty low. It's pretty close to the height of the Ohio River. When we get significant rainfall or experience a wet part of the season, which can be a combination of what we get here and what occurs up river, it can wreak havoc in this area.

I live towards the top of the hill and pretty well inland so flooding has never been a direct issue for me, but it can be a nightmare to get around. The Ohio River is far from me, but Pigeon Creek, which cuts through town, is not. I've seen stretches of closed roads and bridges shut down because of high waters (due to poor foresight when constructing). Some of these roads have been addressed and raised, especially the main arteries that are dependent of moving traffic.

In many areas, a natural levee has been constructed between the river/creek and the city to avoid flooding in houses. (By the way, most houses don't have basements because of the flooding issue.) The portion of the greenway that I was going to take runs along Pigeon Creek. Sometimes it is on top of the levee, othertimes it runs on the alongside the river. Imagine my surprise, when I saw this...



Needless to say, I needed to take a detour. Thankfully, I had not gone too far out of my way.