When telling of future plans involving travel any distance from home, country folk around here used to end with, "Good Lord willing and the creek don't rise." Well, the creeks are rising, and soon the river will follow. A lot of rain is falling in the Choctawhatchee Basin today.
Using the links on the right side of this page, you can access the USGS river gauge data. The most useful will probably be the Caryville gauge near I-10, because it indicates flood stage and also predicts water levels several days in advance, features not provided for the gauge downstream at Highway 20 (Bruce/Ebro). At 11:00 AM the water level at Caryville was 2.2 feet. It will rise fast, and is forecast to to be at 7.4 feet by this time next Monday, five days from now. That's still 4.6 feet below flood stage, but the current will be swift.
Caryville Gauge, 11:00 CST, 11 November 2006
Well, the rails are washed out north of town
We gotta head for higher ground
We can't come back till the water comes down,
Five feet high and risin.'
Johnny Cash, 1967
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