Saturday, March 3, 2018

Chasing the Crest

     January 2016  
AS I WROTE THIS, A WILDLIFE DISASTER OF BIBLICAL PORPORTIONS was playing out in Southeast Arkansas.
     My wife’s brother and his family, JD and Sue Dunnahoe, live beside the Arkansas-Mississippi River Levee, at a location almost even with the confluence of the Arkansas River and the mighty Mississippi. Actually, they live on a low hill, which is the remains of the river levee that was washed out in 1927. Just across the levee, the flood waters now flow along the levee much higher than their rooftop. The sounds of that rushing water is not a comforting sound to hear as they doze off each night.
     The levee, at that point, is 10 miles from the river. Inside that levee, the dense forest abounds with wildlife. Normally. But that was not a normal year. The flood that was occurring then has happened few times before in my memory banks, and never in mid-winter.
     Near the river itself, higher land occurs, many low hilltops. As the water comes up, first flooding occurs along the levee. Slowly, as the water rises, areas nearer the river are flooded.
     Thousands of wild animals must make a choice. They must go outside the levee, without much cover to protect them. Many have already made that choice. JD tells of 25 deer in his yard when he came home. Others have reported herds of 75 deer in their fields. While the deer are the larger, more visible victims, rabbits, snakes and other small animals are also faced with this life or death decision.
     The remaining animals have made the other, the seemingly more attractive choice, in the last few days.  Move toward the river. Higher land, with plenty of cover and food. Farther and farther away from the levee, and survival.
     The deadly choice.
     During a previous flood many years ago, JD put his boat into the floodwaters and traveled to the riverbank. He saw hundreds of deer, rabbits, snakes and other wild animals, all crowded together on the few dry hilltops near the river.
     Later, JD walked up to the levee top. He knew the river had crested, because the government man who follows the crest of the Mississippi river was there. He was a nice enough guy, and he told JD all about his job. He will chase the crest of the Mississippi river all the way to New Orleans.
     Flood stage of the river at that point is around 37 feet. At some point soon after flood stage is reached, the river begins to flood the top of those few high points along the river. The river was then at 43 feet. Those thousands upon thousands of animals  were dying, or already dead. The 10 mile swim to the levee is impossible for them.
     Now, it is up to the relatively few wild animals who made the right choice, who went outside the levee, to repopulate those beautiful, dense forests surrounding the confluence to those two mighty rivers. It will take years. But they always succeed, during the time leading up to the next great flood. I remember only two similar or greater floods, 1973 and 1993. All floods on the mighty Mississippi are based, for comparison, on the greatest and most deadly of them all, 1927.  In my lifetime, these great floods seem to be occurring at around 20 year intervals. The wildlife seem to recover in a few years, giving an unknown number of years to then prosper, followed by wholesale death and destruction once more.
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March 2, 2018 – Is it happening again this year? The levee in southwest Arkansas will close tomorrow.  This happens when a very high crest is approaching.  Flood stage at Arkansas City will be reached tomorrow, 37 feet, and the river will continue to rise. The high land along the river will be flooding in the next few days. As you read this, those animals trapped there may very well be dying. Those who made the deadly choice.
March 3, 2018 -
LATE NEWS FLASH – I just talked JD. The River is over 37 feet today, above flood stage. In 1973, he put his boat on the river and motored into the main river on a hunting trip. Keep in mind, that was a year of one of the great floods. When he reached the higher land by the river, there was still 40 acres or so along the river that was not flooded. But the animals were so thick, he felt guilty about hunting, so he put his gun away and went home. He thinks the water will have to get well over 40 feet before that area is flooded.
     I asked him why the levee is now closed to travel.
     “Well, one fear is that somebody from Mississippi will come across and blow the Levee on this side, to relieve the flooding over there.” JD is not one to get overly excited. “Personally, I think it’s just a lot of people getting excited, and making much ado about nothing.”
      So, I asked, “Do you think I may be one of those excited people?”
      He laughed. “But the deer are coming out on this side, though. I have seven or eight in my yard right now. But they’re not coming out in big herds yet, 70 or 100 in one bunch, like there will be soon.” He reported that the levee has just had a couple of big landslides down around Arkansas City. That does make people excited.

     During the Greatest Flood, 1927, Barbara’s grandfather and other men were sitting around, talking about the flood. One man said, “Well, that levee won’t break. I’ll drank every drop of water that comes through that levee.” Just then, a man ran up, hollering that the levee had broken, and the water is on its way. Barbara’s grandfather jumped up, probably yelling, “Well, you better get to drankin’!”
     He outran the flood waters all the way to McGehee, in  his car, twenty miles.  Then, he got out his row boat, and offered a taxi service between McGehee and Watson. He never missed a chance to make a little money.
     So, nobody yet knows if the animals will die. But the river is still coming on up.  We’ll know in a few days.

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