Brandywine at flood stage

kw: local events, flooding, photographs

I went to the Brandywine Creek near the DuPont Experimental Station today. The creek had just begun to recede, and was at flood stage. An awesome sight. Click on any picture for an 800x600 pixel version.

This is the view looking West from the Rising Sun Lane bridge toward Breck's Mill. The river is just lapping against the mill's parking lot, which gets a lot of business because it houses a post office. There were extra people there today, sightseers like myself looking for a convenient place to see the rushing river.

From that parking lot, this is the view of the larger mill building on the East side of the creek. Its lower storey was half submerged. The debris in the foreground, just beyond where I was standing, included plenty of stuff washed from people's yards: basketballs, flip-flops, lawn chairs, toys of all kinds, but was mostly branches and other plant litter.

Near the main building of Hagley Museum, the debris in and next to these sluice gates shows how water rushing off the hill behind had been several feet deep the night before. My wife tells me she awoke about 3am this morning (Friday morning) to the sound of really hard rain. I reckon that is about the time this debris was emplaced.