Sunday, June 10, 2012

Flooding at Ft. Pickens

I was unable to do my sea turtle patrol at Ft. Pickens today due to flooding. Ft. Pickens Road remains closed because of the weather system which dumped 13 inches of rain on us yesterday. It seemed to come out of nowhere and campers at Ft. Pickens were asked to evacuate the Park on Saturday, unless they had enough food to stay put for three days.

But when I drove into the Park this morning to see if I could possibly get through (I couldn't), I noticed that flooding conditions east of the entrance station did not seem to be as bad as recent years. Sea oats are really looking good now and making a comeback following the destruction of this part of the island by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and Hurricane Dennis in 2005. Their spreading root systems are helping our sand dunes stabilize and grow, and it appears to be helping the flooding situation somewhat. I'm hopeful we see the problem continue to diminish!

















You'll notice there is fogging on the photo. I jumped out of my vehicle long enough to take a quick photo and it only took seconds for the humidity to fog up my lens.

3 comments:

Count Down to SKINNY said...

We are coming there in 2 weeks - how bad is the flooding there?

Barrier Island Girl said...

Hey SKINNY, if you are coming in two weeks (actually if you were even coming in one week), you're just fine. This is a barrier island, made of sand, and water drains fast. This was unusual circumstances to get 15" of rain in 48 hours!

In fact, I will post a video for you which shows the surf this past Thursday afternoon. It will make you forget all about the rain. This sytem will be out of here by the end quickly, though we may have showers lingering for a few days and you can look forward to sugar white sand and turquoise water. :-) The rain has stopped now and I see clearing skies on the horizon!

I hope you have a wonderful trip to our paradise!

DJ (B.I.G.)

Count Down to SKINNY said...

Thanks so much - we have been counting down and cant wait to visit - the kids cant wait to get their toes in the beautiful sand.