Two years after an epic "once in a century" downpour badly flooded Ellicott City, Md. and the historic "oldest RR station in the nation" B&O Museum at the foot of Ellicott City's main street, it's happening again:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ellicott-c ... e-updates/

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/weathe ... story.html

Video from directly outside the Ellicott City station: https://twitter.com/GeorgeSolisWJZ/stat ... 5960398848

Flooding is also reported in the Jones Falls Valley occupied by the Baltimore Streetcar Museum.

Stay tuned for further updates. As with last time, after which it took about a year to completely rebuild the downtown, the Ellicott City station is a hardy structure, and the Museum prepares for this kind of thing by having nothing irreplaceable on the lower level.

In other news, the same weather system triggered tornado warnings in the vicinity of the Stewartstown RR and Steam Into History (the old Northern Central/PRR out of New Freedom, Pa.).

Water has subsided somewhat, but here are images from outside the station museum at the height and then afterwards:

Sandy,

If the Patapsco has flooded, the Jones Falls may have also. How's the Baltimore Streetcar Museum faring?

Phil Mulligan

First, re-read my (edited) post above.

Second, please look to the left at my current location. I'm no longer closer to the BSM than most of their crew/staff/volunteers.

Having said that, I have business associates up the Jones Falls from the BSM who were "washed out" in earlier Jones Falls floods--as in, everything wiped out completely. They reported that today the water was up to the doorsteps, but not in the shop itself. And evcen those past floods didn't damage the Museum.

Given my personal experiences, I'm guessing that the BSM survived unscathed. The only outlier would be if the entrances to the subterranean section underneath Amtrak and the Expressway got jammed with debris. But the BSM Facebook page right now has condolences for EC, with no reports of BSM damage.

A video posted on FB showed water rushing through the buildings and coming out the front, with the entire first floor full of gushing water. It looked like some special effects from a B grade disaster movie. I have never seen footage of such intense flooding.

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php? ... id=5736075

The video is lousy, but worth watching to show the incredible amount of water.

No, here's the incredible part:

Those buildings are far UPHILL from the B&O Museum. Like 50-75 feet higher.

That's Tiber Creek flowing through those buildings, not the Patapsco River.

Ellicott City, for those who have not been there, is nestled into a rock canyon much like a picturesque Swiss village. But several normally tranquil streams converge right in the heart of downtown and flow underneath building foundations, and it all reaches the Patapsco right at the station. The station area, fortunately, serves as a "delta" that gives flood waters a chance to spread out a bit first before hitting the station and river.

While there is an open area at the bottom of town and before the railroad bridge, it is still impressive that the RR bridge hasn't washed out, taking the station with it, especially in this last event. Says something about the B&O construction back in the day (like the Thomas Viaduct carrying modern trains!).

My understanding is some of this is just plain bad luck, but also related to build up of residential housing in the area which has impacted the local hydrology, or the way the water runs off in an event like this (6-inches of rain in a couple of hours).

Bob

NWS hydrographic chart shows Jones Falls crested at 55.2 feet around 6.00 PM EDT Sunday 5-27-2018 at the BSM versus baseline of 50 feet. At 11.45 AM EDT today 5-28-2018 it was 50.6 feet.

Should be correlated with BSM but it looks good.

Phil Mulligan

Reading the reports of rain and time span and viewing the pictures makes your heart go out to the people affected again so soon. No doubt "urban blight" has affected a lot of things. Was born in Catonsville back in the dark ages when development was still minor in comparison to today. A much quieter age back then. That is an incredible amount of rain in a short period of time. After the flood of 2008 at Mid Continent RR I have more empathy for the victims of these incredible floods. Though this looks more like flash flood rather than 2 weeks underwater. The devastation is just as horrendous. Hill country can be beautiful but it has its quirks with that much rain. That is just incredible to see even from 1000 miles away. Prayers and regards, John.

For whatever reason, weather events that were assumed to be 100 year events are occurring much more frequently. If we are to be responsible stewards of history these changed weather patterns must be considered in deciding where to locate/relocate museums, especially archives.

The over development of watersheds has been leading to increased runoff from otherwise uneventful storms which seems to be the case in Ellicott City.

When the Magee Shortway Electric Railroad near Bloomsburg, Pa. was flooded in 1972, some placed part of the blame on the construction of I-80, claiming that its embankment blocked drainage.

That is AN issue, but the other reality is that given that geology and geography, there's no way that hollow (and that's precisely what it resembles, an Appalachian hollow or riverside canyon) will ever be able to handle 6-8 inches (and some nearby auto-gauges recorded 12+ inches) in 2-3 hours, absent massive flood-control basins, dams, and reservoirs that would destroy half the town and still not work very well.

Nobody wants to hear that God/Nature dropped a huge water balloon on them--twice. They want to blame politicians. And it doesn't help that at least some of the development in question uphill includes some of the closest thing to "low-cost housing" that is available in that area. And if I say anything more I'm going to get into personal political analysis......

Word from the museum is no damage to the station. Bridge is also apparently fine.

The retaining wall and sidewalk, both replaced after the last one, are gone once more. Considering how bad the whole thing is, the museum will likely be closed six months at least is my guess, maybe somewhat less.

Since these once-in-a-century floods are happening every few years now I just wonder how many priceless Irreplaceable artifacts will be destroyed. the two largest Trolley Museum in the nation are right next to the ocean.