Friday, July 20, 2007

Don River Flood Videos



No sooner did I post my first Don River video on YouTube than I get the opportunity to post my second (and third) video, at the same site! The torrential downpour Thursday morning resulted in a rapid up-swelling of the Don River. By the afternoon there was a lull in the weather so I hopped on my bicycle and zipped over to the valley. It occurred to me that a video at the Pottery Road weir would make a nice contrast to the video I took last week.

As you can see, I wasn't able to use the same vantage point as it was submerged. The video dramatically displays the power of the river and how a heavy rainfall (or wet weather flow event in the planning lexicon), can change a relatively placid watercourse into a raging torrent.

The video easily encapsulates the problems facing the river, brought on by the intensive urbanization of the watershed. As water surges through the small streams that lead into the Don, they scour the banks and stream beds of mud and debris - and it all ends up here in the Don.

My third video is from the same time. While I was watching the water I saw this big tree approach. I took this video of the tree going over the weir, the river handled it just like another twig.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey DW,

Great video. That weir becomes a great surfing hole for a kayaker, except for the flotsam coming downstream!

An important note to the TRCA riverbed modifications of some years ago is that they also mitigated the "drowning machine" that that low head dam had become.

A horizontal hydraulic like the one now created by the weir is much safer than the vertical hydraulic that used to form.

cheers,
solotrek

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the videos, the 'before' and 'during a storm' make for a good contrast. I've geotagged them at http://wholemap.com/map/area.php?area=TorontoBrickworks&pin=DONWATCH-13 if anyone is interested in seeing where this is (if you zoom right in you can see the rapids).