We walked along Greenbelt Park and down towards the River Park yesterday, of course we couldn’t walk all the way to the river park as most of the south end is under water. There was a huge news crew set up there and we had to be careful not to interrupt their broadcast.

The picture above is of a small piece of the M Bridge back in July of last year, the one below is from yesterday. It’s still possible for barges and the like to fit under this bridge but this is not the case with many other bridges over the Mississippi.

A quick video clip taken from what’s left of Greenbelt Park…

Mud Island, actually a peninsula, was created when they diverted the Wolf river in 1960, and opened to the public in 1982. It’s home to the River Park & Museum, Harbor Town – a collection of homes, apartments & small business, and the Greenbelt Park. This area has never been exposed to a flood of this magnitude and this has raised concerns with the Shelby County EMA about the actual flood risks including how strong the “island” is and how much pressure it can handle.

Photos Inside…

The middle of May 2010 we thought the photo above was amazing, the Mississippi had risen up into the Greenbelt Park, little did we know…

In March of this year we walked along the grassy hill and marveled at the water that had risen several feet above where we normally walk. We were really glad to have gotten there before the water started receding. Ha! Mother Nature had a surprise for us.

The water never really did recede and now swelled with contributions of several torrential rains and a heavy winter up North, we are nearing the record high of 48.7 feet set in 1937. Stay tuned for more…

In just a few minutes we are going to take our neighbor’s son to basketball practice and then head down to see how close we can get to the increasingly swollen Mississippi. I’m dying to get some photos of favorite landmarks that are currently being swallowed by the muddy waters. I’ll share what I capture when I return.

So we didn’t make it to the river for all of sunset; but I did get a chance to take some pretty neat photos and the dog and the kid had a grand time.

We were quite surprised at how much higher the river was this time around, a good 8-10 foot difference since the last time we were down there. Guess that explains why they don’t build close to the bank on the lower, flatter Arkansas side.