Spring always comes rolling in with buckets of rain to dump, but this year it hasn’t slowed down for summer. It’s relentless, coming down three or four days a week. It has ruined plans, raining straight through the peak of wedding season. Raining out all the Whitaker concerts and most of the Tuesday night Tower Grove Farmers’ Markets. Raining every time you hang something outside to dry. We’ve hardly had to even water our gardens.
And the flooding, of course, is the real worry. The river hasn’t crested this high since the infamous 1993 flood, when it hit 49.58 feet. That was a once-in-every-hundred-years flood like no one alive today had ever seen before. It’s become part of our local history, coming up at family get-togethers and popping up in commemorative TV spots.
Now, just 26 years later, the river creeps close to that record again. It now stands at 45.4 feet. Again, basements are flooded. Businesses are shut down. Property destroyed. We look at the rain differently these days. It’s more than just a bad-mood maker; now it makes us uneasy. We know that the water is rising.
There’s more rain coming later this week, but the river is predicted to stop rising now. Even so, this flood has been a warning. For years, climate scientists have foretold an increase in flood-bearing weather like this. It’s tempting to hope that it’s just another anomaly, but in all likelihood it is the beginning of a pattern. We have not been kind to our home. The earth warms, the storms whip up, the rivers rise. We are reminded at once of the destructive power of nature, and of our own power to destroy it.
All That Moves 