Down by the Banks

This past weekend I had to go to downtown Baton Rouge. If you've been paying attention to the news lately you should know that the Mississippi river is at some of its highest levels ever.

While the actual levee has been restricted to pedestrians there was an overlook to look out onto the river.
Yes, this may look impressive but it's hard to tell just from this picture what it actually means.

sourceFor comparison the photo above is of the the USS Kidd, a battleship that is permanently docked in the river and used as a museum. You can tell it's docked by looking carefully underneath the boat. The photo above was taken on a fairly dry day a few years ago. The photo below was taken this past Saturday. You can see the front end of the USS Kidd on the left side of the picture. Also those steps in the first picture and pretty much completely underwater now.
At this point it's hard to know exactly what's going to happen. The river is supposed to crest here in the middle of next week. And while everything sounds crazy and this is going to impact a lot of people, thankfully where I live and work I'm not really in danger. But just try to have the people of Louisiana in your thoughts over the next few weeks.