6-14-2015 Camp and Lake Bistineau Flooding

I started this post for 6-14-2015 and never did finish it, I thought I had. Well I'm finally done with it and have post dated it so it's still in its sequence. 
My spouse and I own property on Lake Bistineau.  With all the flooding on the Red River it wasn't surprising the waters backwashed into Lake Bistineau's watershed. When that happens the water can't drain over the dam and then it ends up building up in the lake.  This has happened before since we've own the property but it is a very rare occurrence. We went to check out the property and wasn't surprised to see the water at the levels that it was.

This is the dam/ spillway of Lake Bistineau.
  The road over it.

 This is the actual spillway area and you can see the water is higher than the spillway/ dam.  The image was taken heading east on Hwy 154 and is looking south

 This is headed west on Hwy 154 and is looking north.  This is the eastern shore

 Typical view of the lake in this area.  The one thing that is noticeable is the water is up to the branches, usually there is a foot or more difference.

Now for the pictures from the camp area.
We have a small inlet area that usually just has very little water going through it  as you can see its pretty full now. 

 This is looking across our property to the neighbors boat house

 This is looking at the other neighbors boat house you can see the road is covered to get to the dock area.

And this is looking towards our boat house.  You can't see the boathouse very well but you can see the railing and how high the water is on the railing plus you can see we have an observation deck and you can get a feeling of how high the water is based on the stairs to the deck and also the water along the fence line.

 This is just looking out our porch and the area we normally view.

 Another view of it but with the tree in it for reference.

 I just like this one because I did think it was pretty.

 I like this one because you can see the slope of the land in this area.

I couldn't get over how much things had risen since last summer when things were so down the year before. Here's the post I did on 3-28-2015  http://rockhoundingaround.blogspot.com/2015/03/lake-bisteneau-on-3-28-2015.html  .  In it you can see what it was like both when its down and at a normal level.
I'm going to include some of the images from November 28 2014 so you can see what the lake looks like when it's way down.
This shows my neighbors boat dock with no water around it. 

 I liked this one because this is normally an inlet with water in it.

 Here the dogs were playing in what is normally lake bed.  Our boat house is in the background.

 another view of the dry inlet

 And here's a good view of our boat house with no water near it.

 This is looking under our dock.  The lake was down at least 10 feet.

It always amazes me when you see mother nature acting this way.

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Red River Still Rising At 36.5 feet (June 7, 2015)

At first they were predicting the Red River to crest at 33 feet, then 34, but it kept on rising, and when it was over 36 feet they realized it still hasn't crested.  Now they are predicting it to crest at  37 feet with it currently being at 36.9
Here's a current chart.  I was surprised to see that the chart updates itself when there is a change.
also here's the link to it.  Red River Chart NOAA


Now I'm going to see if I can just get an image of it without it changing with time. Yes it's didn't change like the linked one did.

Needless to say this has been fascinating to me.  I want to check it out since its been 70 years since the last flood of this magnitude.

Here are some of the pictures I was able to get on Saturday.
 I chose this one because you could see how flat this area of town is. We were on LA 511 headed towards the Jimi Davis bridge.   But then as I looked at it I realized something else about this.

 Here's the same picture that I have cropped and enhanced.  You can see how close the water is getting to the road.  See that white stick with the orange top.  That's a TV Cable line.  Then if you look in the background you can see storage tanks for an oil/ gas well that is behind the wooden fence. So many things are going to be affected by this.  On the news they have reported that certain apartment complexes had to turn off the electricity.  That's been a real hardship because we've been having weather in the 90's.

This image was used because it shows how high the water has gotten in the exit and entrance ramps.

I was going over the Jimi Davis Bridge  511 (eastbound)  and was looking south and you can see the retaining wall working but just barely.  they've had to reinforce it at the end, as seen by the red looking dirt. 

We got off and was able to get onto the Aurthur Teague parkway.  We were only able to go a short distance before we had to turn around.  This image is looking at the Jimi Davis Bridge from the south bound lane of the Arthur Teague parkway.
 
My husband pulled over to the side.  We noticed some other people pulled over and one guy had a huge camera taking pictures.  I was looking in the direction of his camera to see what he was so focused on.  It looked like a log in the water.  Then I noticed that this log was going up current which it shouldn't be able to do since there were no eddies present. 

It then dawn upon me that that wasn't a log but an alligator.  I tried getting an image of it.  Its not the best.  I did crop it and enhanced but its still hard to see.  Look at the center bottom and see the reed, its right above that in the red waters.  If it hadn't been moving I would have missed it completely.  Makes me wonder how many other animals that were hiding that we weren't seeing.

We continued to drive down the southbound lane and could see how high the river has gotten.

I felt sorry for this land owner.  You could tell that the water had creep in from the side because the river would be behind towards the back of the image.  The house was isolated by the water. 

We turned around and headed back home.  We were now traveling north on Arthur Teague.  This was a good image of the levy for the area.  It looks like the houses in this subdivision will be okay.  I thought with the tree and fence post and roof tops, one could tell that that levy had to be at least 8-10 feet high. 

We headed west, back over the Jimi Davis bridge.  This is looking north at the Arthur Teague parkway.  The reddish water is where the alligator was and you can see how close its getting to the road.

This is what the Red River looks like.   Its easy to see why its called the Red River.

In this image, I was looking north onto Clyde Fant Parkway.  Notice all the workers and national guard working to shore up the retaining wall.  But even with all of this work water has still gone through the drainage pipes and have filled in the area around the exit ramps.

The Red River Rising on Clyde Fant Parkway as seen from the Jimi Davis Bridge LA511. (north)  6--6-2015around 1:30.

The rising Red on the northern exists of LA-511.

I thought these would be the last images I would be able to get but the next day I had a function to go to over in Bossier City.  The Jimi Davis bridge was the easiest way to get to it.  Everyone was really slowing down going over the bridge  but by the time I got my camera out it was too late to get an image so when I was coming back I had my cellphone handy and set in my camera mode so all I had to do was press the camera button.  .
These are the images I got.

 These are from the LA-511 Jimi Davis bridge looking north.  In this one you can see water has seep over the retaining wall and that they've had to build another wall in the medium of the parkway.

 Here's a slightly different angle where you can see how much work has been done in just one day.  Too bad the images weren't better.

There is one thing I would like to point out.  A lock and dam system had been built upon the Red River.  People were counting on this lock and dam system for keeping the Red river under control.  It just goes to show how much we don't know about mother nature and our ability to control things.  It reminds me so much of John McPhee's book 'The Control of Nature'.

I don't know if I'll get by the River again but if I do I'll be sure to include any photo's I may get.  I must admit I just love my cellphone and being able to get pictures just by having someone drive me in the car.
The New NOAA on 6-8-2015 @4:00  its at 37.02

The Shoal Creek Vitex ws in full bloom on 6-5-2015

A while back I wrote about my neighbors Vitex plant.  I hadn't seen one like it before and the next thing I knew they wrote about Shoal Creek Vitex in my local paper.  I was pleased to find out what it was.  Here's the link to that post on 5-20-2011.  /2011/05/more-things-blooming.

I decided to copy that section from that time so you will know which one I'm talking about.
here's Wikipedia reference to it Vitex.

Shoal Creek Vitex

Closer view of a Shoal Creek Vitex

I've been keeping an eye on that plant and you should see it now.  It's so pretty.
 Last year I took some pictures but never posted them.  They were taken on 6-6-2014

 Just look at how full that bush has gotten.  These were taken on 6-6-2014

And here's this years Vitex pictures taken on 6-05-2015

Shoal Creek Vitex on June 5, 2015

Shoal Creek Vitex 6-5-2015

I love how big the plant has gotten and can see trying to get one for my yard someday.  I love the color of them. 

June 4, 2015 Red River Flooding Clyde Fant

I had a fund raiser event to go to at the El Dorado casino resort.  The event is sponsored by The Northwest Louisiana Food Bank and is called Empty Bowls.  It is an enjoyable fund raiser to go to and  I've made it for a few years.  They've been doing it for 10  years.
    Going to the event I thought for sure Clyde Fant Parkway would be closed since I was there at 1 and the water was starting to go into the road.  Curiosity got the better of me and I just had to travel the road to see how the water was doing with it.  As I drove down it the water was definitely up.  They had closed off the Stoner exit and I couldn't stop there.  I got to the Riverfront district and was surprised they were letting people drive through the rising waters.  Most people were not doing that but driving around it by turning onto the side street.  I got to the event right at 6:00 when it started but the whole lobby was full of people waiting to get in.  I decided to go ahead and walk by the river park one more time.  These were the pictures I was able to get on my cellphone.

I thought this light post would be a good reference if I got there again. 

 I could tell that the water was very close to the edge of the River park waterworks feature.

 I guess I liked this one the best because you can see how deep the water had already gotten, plus you can see the railroad bridge and SciPort in the background. 

 This one you can actually see where its coming up from the river.  I never realized this area was so low.

 This one because you have the railroad bridge base as a reference point.

 This I just thought was pretty and you can see how red the water gets.

 This is the Texas street bridge and the I thought it would be another good one to use as a reference point.

I was at the event from 6-8 and when I left I was pleased to see that they had indeed closed the road.  Going back I got onto Clyde Fant at another location and did drive it some.  When I went to exit at the Jimi Davis Bridge I did notice that the water was within inches of the road.  I figured it wouldn't take much before this section of the road would be closed soon too.