Damn the Dam

Bad news for my hometown this past weekend. The dam a few towns upstream BROKE.

The Delhi dam was built in the 1920s and created a recreational lake that a lot of people had homes around. My family had a cabin out there for years. I caught my first fish there. But, the lake is now gone.

Sadly, the people on the lake are more concerned about their precious lake being gone than the millions of dollars of damage this caused downstream.  From my experience working at the canoe rental in Monticello for four years, I have kind of a bias against the Delhi dam.  They would let water out so they could have good levels for holiday weekends, sometimes causing our river to flood out and costing us several canoes.

Anyway … the dam’s broken. And water rushed into my hometown this weekend.

Oh, did I mention?  It was the county fair this week. Our county fair is the 2nd biggest fair in the state next to the state fair. Styx and Joan Jett were going to play Saturday night, but everything was cancelled due to the water.

This is a picture of the swine barn, at the bottom of the fairgrounds — which is at the same level as the trackside seating for all the concerts that would have gone on.

Fortunately, I’m pretty sure everybody in my family isn’t really affected by the flooding (directly anyway).  I found out about this on Saturday when my friend Kasey called and asked if anybody in Monti needed help moving. I was like “moving what?” “oh, the dam broke, so moving anything.” Crap.

Regardless, I’m not moving to a flood plain. And if I do, I am so getting flood insurance. I just hope that everybody is safe.

UPDATE: Read about it and watch the video of Lake Delhi emptying into the Maquoketa river on CNN.

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