We decided late that we would take a ride and on the way back go by the brook, what a mess the ice is making, I didn't take the camera because the batteries are dead but I'll try to get a picture tomorrow. Two days ago I emailed the highway superintendent, I told him it was ok to put the big excavator on our property next to the bridge on our road but I haven't received a response or seen the excavator yet. In the spring if the ice is bad they'll put the excavator there so they can remove the ice so it doesn't blowout the bridge.
It seems I never delete any pictures, here's the excavator they put next to the brook on 2-22-13 for ice control so it won't take the bridge out.
We did some snowshoeing early this morning so we could check the brook out for ice jams, the majority of the brook is wide open except the end by the bridge on our road.
I had emailed the highway supervisor about two days ago about the ice buildup but never heard back so I called today. There are two areas in the Brook that have an ice jam, one that is down below the one in the picture which is very close to a camp so he doesn't want to clear the one in the picture and then have all the water go rushing down to the other jam which could flood some of the camp out but he surely doesn't want the one above the bridge cut loose and take the bridge out. I told him if he needed to get on our land so the town could clear the jam then give me a call. The opposite side would be the best side to remove the ice from but that's the area the Brook is running on.....stay tuned. I think Monday or Tuesday they're calling for three quarters of an inch of rain so I would think the work would start on removing the jams soon.
No, but for some it would make a longer drive over to the country store. The wife just informed me it was September of 2005 when we had about five bridges the were taken out by very high water, that includes the one in the picture.
The Brook is starting to freeze from the bottom up again and with the ice jams, the water levels are starting to rise back in our woods.
They have dropped the rain totals from what I saw a few days ago but that could change again, the first totals I saw was 0.75 but today I saw 0.25. They need to clear the ice jam above the bridge first before it gets warmer or we get the rain because if that cuts loose...someone's in trouble.
Yes, they want to use our neighbor's property to get the ice jam cleared but we haven't seen any action our heard anything about it.
The ice jams remain in the Brook, one above the bridge and one below with more ice coming down to the ice jam before the bridge. The water levels have really dropped so that's good but we'll see Monday if the town brings the excavator down, I'm not sure if the rains coming in along with the melt will be enough to push it into the bridge.
I sure hope that you don't get any damage to the bridge; seems the town has had more than enough advance notice about the situation and still decided not to do anything. Maybe they run a corrective maintenance instead of a preventive maintenance program!
