The Flood of 2008

The storms I wrote about in my last entry ended up producing 9 inches of rain about 15 miles north of us, causing an entire county to close all roads and homes to be sandbagged. Fields of freshly planted corn and beans now stand as lakes with waters as deep as 10 feet near the Embarras River. It is a frightening sight, one that has never been seen at this magnitude in history. The national news made a minor mention of the flooding in Indiana this morning, but not a word was spoken about Jasper County Illinois. Here is what we saw from the highway:

This family's home (above pics) is sandbagged, we saw them hauling much of their belongings out on car trailers last night, I didn't have my camera with me at the time. It was sad. Hopefully the waters won't rise any higher, or they may loose their home.

If you look closely in the pic above you can see a stop sign on the left. Follow the high line wires across the picture...this is a road, completely submerged in several feet of water. We estimated that out in the middle of the 'lake' we were only seeing the top half of high line poles...

I have blogged before about our favorite spot down by the river at the local park. Here it is. We normally play along the treeline beyond that pole lamp. It is more than halfway underwater. We were standing in the access road we use to walk there. In the top picture my boys and two of their friends are throwing rocks in the water....can you see the top of the blue trash can peeking out in the center right of the picture? My children were amazed that our special spot was now a lake!

Sadly this is not the worst of the flooding. These were areas that are accessible. There are hundreds of people completely shut off from any available roads, and there is a small town in Jasper County, Ste. Marie, that is completely cut off. There is no way to get into or out of there today. This is the worst recorded flooding on the history books. We are a farming community....this is completely devastating. These people need your prayers.