Weekly Photo Challenge: Now

Bandstand, Frontier Park, St. Charles, Missouri

Frontier Park, St. Charles, Missouri, still decked out for Christmas

Want to sit a spell? Frontier Park, St. Charles, Missouri

At least someone(s) are enjoying the water. Lewis & Clark statute, Frontier Park, St. Charles, Missouri.

I missed last week’s photo challenge, just too busy getting ready for Christmas I guess. But looking at it today, I have the perfect photos for “Now”. If you’ve been following the news lately, the Midwest, specifically the St. Louis and surrounding areas, has made the news again. This time for epic flooding. Our area of the Midwest got 10+ inches of rain last Saturday and Sunday, and this extraordinary amount of rain has caused flooding in areas that have never seen the like of before. Interstate 70 in the O’Fallon area was shut down going both east and west when the Dardenne creek topped its banks and flowed over the interstate. They say it has never done that before. My area of Missouri, St. Charles County, lies just above St. Louis county and we are bounded on the south by the Missouri River and on the East by the Mississippi River. The confluence of these two rivers is the northeast corner of our county and during times of flood, the small town of West Alton is almost always inundated with flood waters. Such is the case now as it was in the 500 year flood of 1993. That flood decimated this area which luckily is mostly rural, but many, many homes were destroyed and have never been rebuilt. If they are rebuilt, the land level must be raised to above the 100 year flood level. The hardest hit area during this flood is the county south of St. Louis; Jefferson county. Many of those residents have found themselves marooned in their homes because most of the major and minor streets are flooded. People in St. Louis can’t get home to Jefferson County and people in Jefferson County can’t come north.

Although during the “great flood” of 1993, the Missouri River in St. Charles crested well over it’s flood stage of 25  feet , and the waters reached almost to Main Street, one street west of Riverside Drive which parallels the river and Frontier Park.

To see more of this week’s photo challenge, click here.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Gathering

Susan G. Komen Race for a Cure

A gathering sea of pink. Thousands participate each year in June in the St. Louis Susan G. Komen Race for a Cure. This race, whose donations benefit breast cancer research, is dear to me as breast cancer took my mother in 1987 when she was only 57.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Oops

The calendar said it was spring and the daffodils had certainly reacted as though it was. But, spring here in the Midwest means anything is possible. Like they say, if you don’t like the weather in Missouri, wait a day.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Eye Spy

To see more of this week’s challenge, click here.