Flooding in Maryland

[Hornius Emeritus 12514]

Unbelievable.


 

 

[Parliament 14405]

Did it wash away all the ne'r do goods in Baltimore?

[DaysOff 8023]

Tuesday in Houston

[J.R. Juniors Junior Jr. 1107]

Been there a couple of times, nice town with several good bars and restaurants.  It also got catastrophically flooded in August 2016, and had just begun to recover.

[Bullneck 19323]

18 minutes ago, Parliament said:

Did it wash away all the ne'r do goods in Baltimore?

It's funny what some people think about first.

[Bullneck 19323]

6 minutes ago, J.R. Juniors Junior Jr. said:

Been there a couple of times, nice town with several good bars and restaurants.  It also got catastrophically flooded in August 2016, and had just begun to recover.

Ellicott City, in case anyone is wondering.  Just got off an Amtrak train from D.C. to NJ.  Was rainy as we pass through Baltimore Penn Station.

[phdhorn 6224]

I used ta live near there.  Ellicott City was a bad place to put a town, kind of like New Orleans.  It's built in a sunken little valley where at least 4 rivers/streams coverge; in fact the most of the downtown and immediately surrounding areas have been carved into a little nice sinkhole by these streams over the millennia.   The town got started because the Patapsco River falls near there from the Piedmont Plateau to the lower costal plains (first hint:  where water runs in rapids, uh, might not want to build there), so it was a good milling place.  However the mill flooded within 2 years of being set up (underwater out front shoulda told ya), but it was rebuilt and the town was built around it.  What sealed its fate was that it was the first commercial railroad link in the United States, from Baltimore about 15 miles down to Ellicott City, to take advantage of Baltimore's ports could export the ground flour, corn, tobacco, and even some textiles for quick profit.  Once the rail was built, the town sprung up - even though it pretty much flooded out  at least ten times in 50 years.  Since then it's had a number of devastating floods (at least 15 in the 20th Century, and 3 big ones this one since 2011 alone.)  Think Johnstown, Pa.

The "suburbs" are built on higher ground, so it's not a problem, but man that downtown is sunken in there at the convergence of four rivers.  It's gonna flood.  It's gonna flood a lot.

Edited May 28, 2018 by phdhorn