Posted by David Sherman on Wednesday, November 08, 2006 at 9:18PM :
In Reply to: Re: High water in North Idaho posted by Ugg at IL on Wednesday, November 08, 2006 at 9:48AM :
After I took the pictures, the water came up even more and was splashing over the end of the bridge on top of the pier. I have the other end of the bridge tied to a stump with a cable so that if it gets washed off the pier or hit with a log, at least it won't go downstream. I recovered my old bridge twice that way. I raised the pier about a foot when I built this new bridge, and I cemented some rocks on the downstream side of the logs, which I think is what saved it.
The water's gone down 2 feet today, so it looks like the bridge survived. Drove way down the road and back and didn't find any major damage either, just a few rocks and logs here and there. One big culvert was starting to develop a log jam, but it was easy to pull apart. Water's running out of the hillsides everywhere, but no more rain to speak of, so I think the flood is over.
It was sure amazing to see how fast that water came up, though. I'm glad I wasn't on the other side. I guess you'd have to say my cabin and trucks are on the flood plain, since they're on the flats, but the cabin's hard up against the hillside where the water hasn't run for a long time and the trucks are on an old bar 5' above the high water mark. The only thing that could flood my stuff out is an ice jam.
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