yesterday's flooding in chicago

We live about a block and a half from a large park that has two baseball diamonds, some walking paths and park benches. The park has plenty of green grass and large, lush trees. Running through the park is a river. In a previous post I referred to the river as "shallow and muddy". Usually, you can see the bottom of the river, with mere puddles of water forming here and there. Until yesterday.

Yesterday morning I took the dog for her morning walk and noticed that--overnight--the river had filled and overflowed. It was threatening to cover the walking bridge, but was still low enough to flow under the bridge. Crossing the bridge, I discovered that half the park had turned into a large pond overnight. The photos below seem unremarkable at first until you remind yourself that just hours before there was no water here whatsoever, besides a collection of puddles in a deep river bed.

The water fountain surrounded by flood water...



The water level rose to just under the bottom of the bridge.



Some pics of the flooded park...






A bench in the middle of the park, beside a path; the bench is half-covered in the middle of a newly formed lake now.



In spite of warnings to the contrary (as on the sign below), within the past three months someone climbed the fence and got swept away by the river--drowned. I met someone who lived in the same building as the person that drowned and you could see the heartache on his face.





The water level approached the top of the fence. On the near-side, the river spilled over into the park, creating a large pond.