It’s been raining on and off for a week and today it has rained all day. It is in fact still raining this evening. The result: lots of mud, lots of deep water, and a post that combines two of my long-running interests: drainage and dead trees.
I knew this could not possibly have been the first time we’ve seen such a scene. And sure enough, five minutes of poking around in my laptop turned up two more images. The first one is clearly very early, possibly even part of the aftermath of the flood of 1911:
(Lots more about the 1911-1912 era attempts to control the flow of water on campus here and here.)
The second, although possibly less muddy somehow seems even more melancholy. It was 1946 and I bet they had to pump all that water out of the hole they dug for the Anderson Building foundation:
Bonus: An old familiar feeling .
But for once the Italian cypress look healthy and straight up.
I’m not sure what those are but they aren’t Italian cypresses. They’ve got pretty good sized leaves.
The infamous William Rice Marsh.
I wonder what the species are the three trees that appear to have died. (The ones with all-brown foliage.)
I;m not sure what any of the trees are. Can’t get in there yet.
“ It was 1956 and I bet they had to pump all that water out of the hole they dug for the Anderson Building foundation:”? Oh, I see. The photo is dated 1946. That’s better. Anderson was already there when I arrived in 1951.
There was a large flood in the mid 70’s summer. The Thresher had a picture of one student swimming in RMC basement if memory serves.
One of the most famous construction-adjacent floods came in the spring of 1966. A new section of Fondren was being built, and the construction people had excavated a steam tunnel to connect to the old section.
Well, one dark and stormy night, it rained buckets and flooded the new tunnel, along with the basement of Fondren, which contained the Rare Book Room at the time. The damage to books in general, and rare books in particular, was awful.