Since this will be my last post featuring pictures from the Facebook group “Missouri’s Historic Highways”, it just seems right to have something memorable for the finale. So what could be more memorable than a flood?
This location is at the junction of US 40 and Route 5 just north of the town of Boonville. Keep that in mind as we will be seeing this area again. This is water from the Missouri River and, as general misfortune would have it, this very location was flooded again last summer.
Highways being flooded is nothing new, as evidenced by this likely 1930s era picture taken on Route 94 in the St. Louis area. Some things never seem to change as there are still sections of I-44 in Missouri that will flood during extreme events. It’s undoubtedly got good company with locations in other states being similar; just watch The Weather Channel or Weather Nation if in doubt. The costs of mitigating this are crazy high.
Flooding is truly an inconvenience but a bigger inconvenience is being dead from driving through flood waters. One never knows what moving water will due to the surface underneath, such as leaving a nasty void. We won’t even discuss the general nastiness found in flood waters.
This was taken July 4, 1951, in Cedar City, just north of my current home of Jefferson City. The Flood of ’93 pretty much eliminated the rest of Cedar City; its best use now is for teaching kids how to drive, like I did with my daughter.
Yes, some of these pictures do make me cringe, primarily this one. This is near Festus and notice the black dots in front of the truck. Those are the heads of kids swimming. I’m not one to get concerned about some of the subjective safety issues periodically discussed in the comments but this is an entirely different ballgame.
So it’s always refreshing to simply see flood water with cars parked nearby.
A closer look reveals a sweet Packard. Both of these pictures are from West Alton.
Here’s our last picture from the eastern half of the state, near DeSoto. Note the highway patrol car beneath the marker for US 67.
Remember how we need to keep US 40 near Route 5 in mind? Here it is again in an earlier flood. It appears the car closest to the camera is a Nash.
This last picture is taken in the same vicinity and likely at the same time as the lead picture. There are already flood warnings out for this spring, but I shall remain optimistic things will remain dry and within the levee systems.
So reminds me of New Orleans after a heavy rainfall.
Last year, they found a Mazda 626 stuck in the drainage system.
https://www.nola.com/news/article_b789a714-cb6a-11e9-a42c-7baa0b5a8a51.html
and just imagine how useless those drum brakes would be after passing through that!
I’m thinking also of all the wet, nonfunctioning ignition systems.
The mere sight of all of that water would give a Chrysler ignition system the vapors. Whoever thought that the lower right front corner of the engine was a good location for the distributor was either insanely incompetent or was playing a cruel joke on millions of Mopar drivers.
My dad’s 58 Plymouth Savoy, flathead 6, would agree with you!
Flooding is a rare problem in Tucson, but it can happen. Summer thunderstorms can dump enormous amounts of water in a very short time and overwhelm drainage streets, storm sewers, and underpasses. However, they clear in a matter of hours. October 1983 was a different story, though. The remnants of a Pacific Ocean hurricane parked over southern Arizona for several days and rained steadily the whole time. It turned into a 100-year flood. Local washes and rivers ran bank-to-bank, endangering bridges. The bridge on I-10 over the Gila River was damaged. Local roads that ran through normally dry washes were washed out. People who had to cross bridges to get into or out of Tucson itself were out of luck. Buildings built right up to the banks of major washes were destroyed. Apparently we were down to one major electrical transmission line into the city. The weird thing is, it was annoying more than anything for most of us who lived within the city itself. We could get around OK, and power was still on. In the aftermath, though, a bunch of bridges were rebuilt, at least one bridge on a major north-south street was built, and a whole lot of river bank protection was done.
What a fascinating collection of photographs, thank you for sharing. I quite like the composition of the last photo. The colors and subject just work together to make a great photograph. Also, the missing turn signal cover catches my eye.
I did not have to deal with too much flooding when I grew up, but we did have the spring thaw which turned the roads into soup.
In the picture with the highway patrol car beneath the US 67 sign, it seems appropriate that the only car headed into the floodwaters is a bathtub Nash!
Great pictures, once again. I love the third shot with the Greyhound bus. The Nash that is two cars back is fun – a bathtub in the water instead of the other way around. 🙂
We had some high water in my area recently. I didn’t give a moment’s thought to wet brakes after coming out the other side of a 6 or 8 inch deep pool in an intersection. But it wasn’t always so, where the drill was to start riding the brake pedal with my left foot to heat and dry those drums.
Great photos. Even today many drivers are clueless on how to handle flooded roads. Had a company driver in an Edge forge directly down a flooded two lane highway at slow speed after seeing others stuck. Ended up caught in the current and forced against a telephone pole. Had to be pulled from the half submerged Ford though the window by police, endangering them in the process. His reasoning was that he was higher than a car.
More great photos. In the third photo the Chevy in the foreground with the guy sitting on the fender. At first glace I thought he had flooded out and was awaiting rescue. A closer look shows he was riding on the fender. I guess he was the lookout. The last photo with the ’55 Ford indeed was taken right before the first one with the lovely bare bones LeSabre. If you zoom the photo and squint hard enough you can see the yellow LeSabre in the background, as well as the ’57 Chevy behind it.
I got caught in a flash flood over thirty years ago in my ’69 Ambassador on my way to work. I was on a well marked road and even though I should have stopped I kept going. It got deeper to where I was moving about 5 mph and water was beginning to push over the hood. The rain let up and I was able to get to higher ground before the motor got wet enough to die out. I waited for the water to recede some more, got out and dried the distributor, and went on my way. I had to vacuum some water out of the floorboards, and flush the automatic transmission afterwards. Otherwise, no problems. If that were to happen again I think I would stay home.
That’s not a flooded road, this is – Burdekin Bridge Charters Towers in Queensland.
Great Pictures. The 1964 Buick in the lead picture looks identical to my Grandparents last car. They bought it from a Mennonite neighbor in 1969. Bare bones on the outside except for full wheel covers instead of the dog dishes that this one sports. However it had AC, power windows, seats, steering, brakes and of course an automatic, 2 speed I think. Really an oddly equipped car.
Flood waters are nothing to fool with and it doesn’t take much to float a car away. It’s also quite hard to judge how deep the water is. I recall the wife of a family friend drove her ‘62 Falcon into a flooded underpass, thinking she could get through. The water was almost up to the windows. She was safely rescued and the Falcon was towed home. Her husband removed the carpeting, opened all the doors and let the Falcon dry out in the summer sun. A few weeks later the Falcon was back on the road. The vinyl seats were fine, new carpeting was installed at Rayco and the Falcon soldiered on for several more years. I’m sure any modern car in similar circumstances would be totaled, it’s electronics ruined.
Exactly.
This past summer there was a heavy rain north of me, something like 5 inches in three hours. Typically dry areas were quite wet, obviously. Anyway, a lady in her Camry was driving home on a low volume road. Water was over the road; she drove through and discovered why driving through flood waters is a bad idea.
The water had undermined a culvert and she fell in.
No sooner had she climbed out of the moonroof than a utility truck thought he could make it (it was still dark outside). That 3/4 ton Chevrolet landed on top of the Camry.
Both drivers were okay but both learned a hard lesson.
Great pictures, thank you. Reminds me of this.
https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/holy-island-crossing-risk-summer-16355677