When it rains, Shipoke wonders
I've lived in the Shipoke neighborhood by the Susquehanna River in Harrisburg (see name of this blog) long enough not to get overly worried when it rains hard. I've lived here since 1989, and I know it has to rain really, really hard for there to be a risk of the Susquehanna River coming over the top and into Riverfront Park. We moved here in May 1989, and the first month there was a week when it rained nearly every day. Water came up high, but didn't come over the top. Newcomers to the neighborhood understandably worry when the region gets hit by a hard rainstorm like it did Sunday, when Front Street in Harrisburg was awash in places.
That said, the Susquehanna River is going to come up a lot over the next few days. The linked chart is updated everyday at 4 p.m. My neighbor Todd VanderWoude, the general manager of the Harrisburg Senators, pays for a really good weather service (naturally for a team on City Island in the middle of the river) and says the word is that the river will crest Thursday morning at 15.3-17 feet, based on the watershed getting three more inches of rain today and tomorrow. Harrisburg's official flood stage is 17 feet, but Shipoke's is higher, 21-22 feet.
So we should be okay. We'll get to watch the water come up to within five feet of the park, and get to watch tree trunks and debris being swept down the river from upstate. My basement, thanks to some work done last fall by my able contractor, Randy Shreve, should stay dry. The only neighbor who might have cause to worry at 17 feet lives at the intersection of Race and Tuscarora, neighborhood lowpoint and location of the "first to flood" house. We'll all be ready to help Rod if it looks like that's going to happen.
Meanwhile, the city of Harrisburg, which takes floods seriously, was busy today moving barges out of the river (Mayor Reed's party barge was swept away in the 2004 flood, but later recovered) and moving the buildings in Riverside Village Park on City Island to higher ground. I also heard that the private marinas along the river were moving the boats moored there. Always pays to be prepared.