AFP photographer Juan Mabromata recently visited the
ruins of Villa Epecuén in Argentina, a small touristic village that started slowly re-surfacing after the rising waters of the nearby lake left it completely underwater nearly 26 years ago.
[more inside]
posted by palbo
on Jul 26, 2011 -
18 comments
The opening of the Morganza spillway on May 14 by the U.S. Corps of Engineers is not only a tacit admission of the severity of the river control problems the spring 2011 flood of the Mississippi River is creating, but also one of the last remaining measures the Corps has for protecting the
Old River Control Structure, which has prevented the Mississippi from naturally diverting its main channel through the shorter, steeper Atchafalaya River channel, since construction of the control structure in the late 1960's. If the Old River Control Structure fails (as it nearly did in the 1973 floods), or the river overwhelms other nearby levees north or south of the Morganza spillway/ORCS, the main channel of the Mississippi could suddenly shift westward by about 100 miles, bypassing New Orleans and the current lower delta, with
severe long term effects for the U.S. economy.
[more inside]
posted by paulsc
on May 14, 2011 -
148 comments
The Honeymoon From Hell. Stefan and Erika Svanstrom had planned a long trip that would start in Singapore in early December and end in China four months later.
But things didn't go exactly as planned. They encountered floods, fires, tsunamis and earthquakes along the way.
posted by mannequito
on May 6, 2011 -
14 comments
It's not quite the Nile, but there is political strife there too. The Illinois river town of Cairo (KAY-row), IL, is
surrounded by the Ohio and the Mississippi, and is in danger of being flooded. The Army Corps of Engineers wants to activate a flood mitigation plan by breaching some levees into spillways designed to mitigate such a flood. Unfortunately, those floodways are in Missouri, and they would rather not have a bunch of farmland flooded just to save some little town in Illinois. Judge Limbaugh (
yes) gave the OK, but the battle isn't over yet.
posted by gjc
on Apr 30, 2011 -
39 comments
Around the time of the flooding in Troyes a plant in the south-east of Paris which supplied compressed air to the owners of ‘pneumatique’ equipment – lifts, ventilation, industrial machinery – was submerged. Parisians were fond of compressed-air technology. It was how the postal service delivered mail from one office to another in small brass shuttles propelled along a network of tubes. It was also used to keep the clocks ticking on the streets of the city and, by subscription, in private apartments. When the plant went underwater during the night, pneumatic time stopped dead.
Pavements Like Jelly is an article by Jeremy Harding describing the 1910 Great Flood of Paris which started 100 years ago today.
Photo exhibition with 1300 photographs focusing on Paris.
Even more photos, taking in the entire Seine. Both sites are Flash heavy, for a smaller selection of non-Flash pictures go
here and
here.
[1910 Paris Flood previously on MetaFilter]
posted by Kattullus
on Jan 21, 2010 -
14 comments
"You'll have heard how the city once ended in fire, and around these parts, it threatens to end in ice every few years or so. But once, not too long ago,
Chicago flirted with ending in water, an entirely preventable man-made inundation that
few saw but everybody felt – a two-billion-dollar sucker punch tsunami that weighed in among the dozen most costly floods in American history."
[more inside]
posted by AceRock
on Oct 15, 2009 -
18 comments
Gunson looked up to see a breach appearing in the top of the dam. Feeling a sudden, violent, vibrating of the ground beneath his feet, he quickly scampered up the side of the embankment, luckily just in time, as a few seconds later there was a total collapse of a large section of the dam, unleashing a colossal mountain of water which thundered down the valley and on to the unsuspecting population below. For two hundred and fifty people who lived in Sheffield and the hamlets in the valley below the dam, this was to be their last night on Earth. Six hundred and fifty million gallons of water roared down the Loxley valley and into Sheffield, wreaking death and destruction on a horrific scale. [more inside]
posted by xchmp
on Dec 9, 2008 -
6 comments
Hoping for the best for Mefites in eastern Iowa. I was CR born and raised, and just watching
the feed on KCRG is ...disturbing. It looks like the height of the Cedar River is estimated at 25.4 feet, and
it hasn't crested yet. They've
lost a railroad bridge downtown so far, and the news feed keeps tracking the rise of the river by standing outside the studio and watching the water approaching.
[more inside]
posted by thanotopsis
on Jun 12, 2008 -
53 comments
What if the Devil tricked a well-meaning computer developer into making a horrendous animal racing game? (cringeworthy YouTube link) Now we know! Yes,
Cougar Interactive has a product for you. Zoo Race! The biblical flood is over, and with hardly any people around, what's Noah, God, and the animals gonna do? Why, RACE of course! The game features compelling voice work, top flight graphics, and of course...
animals straddling on rockets. And to top it all off, God is the announcer! It was the best 2007 had to offer, and it's still available... so, like their web site says..
Buy the FUN game that the big game companies would not ever make. (as found at
Kotaku)
[more inside]
posted by tittergrrl
on Jan 17, 2008 -
58 comments
Flash flood! A New Orleans Times Picayune flash animation of exactly how, and where, and when the city of New Orleans and surrounding areas flooded during Hurricane Katrina. Here's the
accompanying article. Even as a local, I had no idea how weak the levee systems were. And apparently
still are. Here's some
more info from a
local grassroots group fighting for better levee protection.
posted by ab3
on May 18, 2006 -
18 comments
Mascots helping Mascots High schools across America have witnessed the devastation brought about by several recent natural disasters, such as Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. An outpouring of sympathy and concern, and a desire to help, have come forth from high schools wanting to assist those in need. To enable schools to help other schools, the National Federation of State High School Associations has initiated a fundraising program called the Mascot Adoption Program.
posted by ColdChef
on Mar 13, 2006 -
3 comments
A toxic landfill site on which
low-income housing was built in central New Orleans is now under floodwaters with the potential to pollute and contaminate portions of the Gulf Coast.
In the 1940s and 1950s, the site was routinely sprayed with DDT, but in 1962 some 229,300 cubic metres of excess fill was removed because subsurface toxic fires kept erupting (and got the site known as "Dante's Inferno").
According to the editor of
Hazardous Waste magazine, the site -- now under water -- will almost inevitably leach toxic effluent into the floodwaters, with the potential of inflicting unpredictable damage on the coast, and those that live there -- a possible environmental catastrophe.
Tests by the EPA in the 1980s and 90s found 149 chemicals - 44 of which are known carcinogens. Among the toxic substances found were arsenic, lead, mercury, barium, and other organic compounds that are associated with pesticides and the burning of waste.
Finally, what is the status of the
Waterford 3 nuke plant just north of New Orleans, and what is the status of that plant's nuclear waste ? News reports say it sustained damage to 'off-site buildings' but what does that mean? Were those waste containment facilities?
posted by Babylonian
on Sep 6, 2005 -
47 comments
The Matrix shatters before the eyes of the nation (sorry, WMP link) -- and on Fox News! For those old enough to remember, it's so significant that Geraldo Rivera says of conditions in the New Orleans Convention Center, "it's like Willowbrook in there." (Rivera became famous in 1972 by
exposing the horrendous conditions in a home for the mentally retarded called Willowbrook; finally, after decades of degrading himself, he remembers what his job is.) And Slate's Jack Shafer on "
the rebellion of the talking heads" -- the refusal of reporters on the ground in New Orleans to regurgitate the official spin. [via
TalkLeft]
posted by digaman
on Sep 3, 2005 -
100 comments
Let the bush bashing begin. Funding for work on New Orleans' flood prevention system slowed to a trickle in 2003, and many people (long before Monday) claimed that was due to the Iraq war. [more inside]
posted by delmoi
on Aug 30, 2005 -
181 comments
