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Floody Muddy shuts Riverside Line between Kenmore and Fenway
By adamg on Tue, 12/09/2014 - 6:09pm
T workers piling up the sandbags. Photo by MBTA.
With the Muddy River rising fast, around 5:20 p.m., the MBTA shut the Riverside Line between Kenmore and Fenway and workers rushed to the portal just past Fenway to begin laying sandbags to keep the Muddy out of the Green Line, in two separate temporary dams.
Around 6:30 p.m., the Muddy River reached 16.4 feet - 1.4 feet above the flood stage at which its waters might begin pouring into the portal:
T workers arrived well before flood stage, though: They're determined to avoid a repeat of the infamous 1996 Muddy River flood that left Kenmore Station shut for two months.
Around 6:40 p.m., Josh Jacobs photographed the completed outer dam:
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Comments
Meanwhile, in MSM land...
Neither the Globe nor the Herald has a thing on their respective front pages about this substantial closing, only the third (or maybe fourth?) time it's happened since 1996.
I didn't check BDC because it makes my soul hurt.
Anticipating problems!
I know this shutdown just added to the misery getting home tonight, but I wanted to give appreciation to whoever it was at the T tonight who actually had the foresight to *anticipate* that bad things could happen, and take some preemptive action to prevent even worse trouble if this thing flooded.
More than a few times
I think this dam has been used more than just a few times. I have to give the T a lot of credit - they learned their lesson from 1996 and have made sure it never happens again. I was a newly-arrived annoying college student when that flood happened - the next year made the Green Line so much worse than it's regular brand of annoying. 10 MPH, stopping at every obstruction to line-of-sight, from Hynes to the portals. Fun stuff. Disrupting a commute or two while the damn is in place is a small price to pay.
I was living in the Fenway
I was living in the Fenway for the '96 flood. I went for a walk and saw that the river had flooded up over the Riverway, with no official notice. Given the state of the culverts at the time, it's not surprising that it happened. This is why I'm a fan of the Muddy River Restoration Project.
I'm glad they were able to
I'm glad they were able to build a sandbag dam. But isn't there supposed to be a more permanent flood door system at this location?