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The new river routes

Posted at 1:22 PM on June 22, 2012 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Disasters

Some video just posted on YouTube presents a reality many of us hadn't considered before about the flooding in the Northland. It's likely some things are never going to be the way they were before. Portions of some rivers and canals, in fact, are going to be in entirely different places than they were just a few days ago.

This video from Thompson, in the Jay Cooke State Park, is a perfect example. How do you fix this?

Also posted today is this video of the famous swinging bridge in the state park. Whatever is left of it can't last much longer.

Duluth Flood 2012 Swinging Bridge Jay Cooke State Park HD 720p from Sparky Stensaas on Vimeo.

In happier times:

Photo: Swinging Bridge over the St. Louis River by stpaulgirl, on Flickr

Comments (5)

It looks like it was a manmade levy that washed away. Since that strema gets fille from Thompson Reservoir, they'll just have to cut the water off to the gulley at some point and rebuild the levy. Take a look at this
Link for the overhead and you get a good picture of where the break occurred.

The power of water never ceases to amaze and scare me.

Posted by Kirk W | June 22, 2012 2:06 PM

Thankfully, the USGS stream gauge at Scanlon shows the St Louis River is finally starting to drop below 16 feet. Hopefully the Swinging Bridge can keep holding on.

Posted by BenCh | June 22, 2012 2:16 PM

It reminds me of what my friend the Army Corps guy always says. "The river always wins in the end."

Posted by John p. | June 22, 2012 3:57 PM

Yup, John P. and never poke at the snake.

(You know how those Chrisitans like their visuals of water.)

Posted by Pricilla | June 24, 2012 4:51 PM

Makes me wish that whoever engineered the swinging bridge had also engineered the Greenway bridge in south Minneapolis.

Posted by rebecca | June 25, 2012 3:33 PM