----- Original Message -----
From: "Ken martin" <kmartin@c...>
To: <BRHSlist@egroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2001 12:23 AM
Subject: Re: [BRHSlist] CB&Q units in Milwaukee
> In 1965 when the levee broke on the Illinois side the water went through
the
> underpass where hwy 34 went under the RR tracks. As I recall this lowered
the
> hwy 30 feet and took out about 1000 ft of double track on a fill. By the
time
> the water got to Gladstone the river was almost ten miles wide. I was in
> Burlington Community College and worked filling sandbags over Easter
break.
>
By odd coincidence, I flew into Burlington just as the flood waters were
beginning to recede . . . a year later, I was working as a draftsman for
Sherman Smith& Associates (a consulting engineering firm in Burlington),
where I got assigned to build a model of the failed levee to be used as a
court exhibit in a lawsuit <grin>.
The '65 flood was a real mess!. As mentioned, the river was about 10 miles
wide. The Ozark pilot made two passes across the river - whether for
traffic (at Burlington, right) or just for sightseeing, I can't say. Most
of the RR yards were under water - the two mains in front of the station
were barely above water, but virtually all other tracks along the riverfront
were under water.
Marshall
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