where I live :: tidal {life}

Early Wednesday, in the wee small hours, I woke up to the sound of rain. This is pretty unusual, actually, (Neel and I sleep with a fan blasting [we like it icy and we like the noise.]) and I don't think I can remember a time when I could hear the rain falling outside. Wind, yes. All the time. The rain? Never. Until that night.

When I hear rain like that, the first thing I always do is check the street.

As expected, the street was gone, and in its place, a river. These photos were taken from a storm a few weeks ago, but flooding like this is not uncommon at this time of year. Our tidal river is partly to blame, as is the fact that Norfolk is second only to New Orleans in the U.S. for issues with flooding and sea level rise.

Once the rain stops, we all emerge to check things out. By the time I could get out and take photos, the water was already receding. You can see the high-water line along the grass across the way. Cal is at the deepest spot, at the corner of two streets and about five house down from ours.

Anyone with a car parked on the street has cause for concern (I know I was worried Wednesday night since Neel usually parks Blanche, our Mini Cooper, on the street. Thankfully he'd pulled into the driveway or he would have been headed out in the downpour!)

Next up! Watching the cars trying to navigate the deep waters! The trucks can usually make it, but the cars are often not successful.

It's funny. I love the street flooding. It's exciting, and as long as I'm safe at home and not worrying about how to get here, it's fun to watch how high the water goes. The worst so far came a couple years ago during a November nor'easter, although the water Wednesday night got pretty high. There are things I don't like though. I don't like that our street floods more now than it did when we moved here nearly ten years ago, and I don't like that Neel and I are noticing that the water takes longer and longer to recede after a storm. In the meantime, we're thinking we need a no-wake zone.

where I live :: the elizabeth river {life}

We are lucky enough to live near water of all sorts. The Atlantic Ocean, the Chesapeake Bay, and here, in these photos, the Elizabeth River.

The Elizabeth River is a roughly 6-mile long tidal estuary along the south end of the Chesapeake Bay. When settlers first arrived at Jamestown, they looked for a harbor to set up trade with the New World and found it here. This river, named for Princess Elizabeth, daughter of James 1, is the largest nautral harbor in the world.

The Elizabeth River launched of much of America's maritime history, including the battle of the great ironclads the Monitor and the Merrimac during the American Civil War. This battle took place where the Elizabeth and Nansemond Rivers meet the James (just past the upper right of the above photo), and the Merrimac was built at the ship yard here. The Elizabeth is now the home to the world's largest naval ship yard and many other maritime concerns. Centuries of use have not treated the Elizabeth well, however. As far back as the 1800s the river had lost much of her tidal wetlands, and much of the industry that made the river and the region so successful and prosperous contributed to a decline in her health. In 1983 the Environmental Protection Agency named the Elizabeth River one of the most polluted areas along the Chesapeake Bay watershed, with portions of the river entirely dead to living organisms.

With a goal of restoring the river, The Elizabeth River Project was founded in 1991. These folks, combining the forces of government and industry, scientists and private citizens, have done some pretty remarkable stuff.

Bald eagles are returning. Oysters are returning. Wetlands are being restored. In one year alone, according to the ERP, port pollution was reduced by 3.4 million pounds and by the year 2000, the Elizabeth River showed the most improving trend for water qualtiy on the Chesapeake Bay!

We've taken to walking or biking down to the river at sunset a couple times a week.

What our neighborhood does not have that I wish it does, is a parkway around the river, with bike and walking paths along the water. Some neighborhoods do have this, but in ours, private homes line the waterfront, with streets dead-ending at the water along the way.

Maybe that's okay though. When we get to the end of the street, there's only water and no where else to go. You have to stop. Watch the lights at the shipyard come on as dusk deepens.

Watch the sun dip lower in the sky. Watch the water lap against the shore.

The river is coming back to life. Sometimes we see dolphins. Fish are always jumping, and birds are always skimming the surface of the water.

As the sun dipped closer to the horizon, these clouds grew pinker and pinker. We never got a storm though. And the dock that you're looking at here, well that's a new dock. When Hurricane Irene hit last fall, the old dock ended up pretty much where I was standing to take this photo. I try to remind myself of that when I regret the few blocks we have to take to get to the water!

Sun is gone. Good night.