Trapped

Waterford, NY
42 47.286 N 73 40.813 N


This is a new experience for us.   We are trapped in Waterford by a flood!

Waterford is the place at the confluence of The Mohawk River and The Hudson River.  In recent days, they had big rainstorms west of here and the Mohawk flooded.

When we went to bed last night the current was swift.  It grew much worse as the night went on.  I got little sleep.  Then floating logs and debris began hitting Tarwathie.  I got up at 0400 to look around.  The river level went up by 6 feet overnight!   The current was pushing us away from the docks and our lines were not tight enough.  Tarwathie sat 6-7 feet away from the dock!   I remedied that, but the water is still rising.

The Erie Canal is closed this morning.  So we can't go west to Niskayuna and Scotia as our plan had been.  Neither can we change plans and go up the Champlain Canal instead of the Erie Canal because the water is so high that we can't fit under the bridge here in Waterford.    We're trapped.  Worse, the water is still rising!   Don't worry about us too much.  We are only 200 feet from the first lock and if things get really bad, they'll let us go into the lock chambers and we'll be isolated from any flooding.

This is getting to be a regular phenomenon.  Last year the Erie Canal closed three times in June because of flooding.  The year before it happened once.  Three years before was Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee which flooded the Mohawk twice in a week.   So that's 6 floods in 3 years (maybe more than 6 because I can't remember them all.).   I'm reluctant to say global warming because there may have been similar periods int the 200 year history of the canal.  But it's surely new to us.

I'm guessing we're stuck here for 3-4 days.  We'll have to make new plans after that.  

There are some events in the Albany/Troy area that have emptied the lots of the car rental companies.  That was the reason we planned to move west to Scotia to be able to rent a car.