Jonathan took his first steps today. At a funeral of all places!
During the reception after the service, he was getting antsy, so I took him out into the lobby where there was a long hall for him to crawl around and burn off some energy. When he got to one end, there was a couch there where he pulled himself up. So on a whim, I stood a few feet back and held my arms out to see if he’d step towards me and he did! About three steps before falling into my arms. Just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke, I set him back to the couch and he did it again! (How can you tell I’m proud of my boy!?)
Unfortunately, Mommy’s in denial since she wasn’t there to see it. (But I did have a witness to say I wasn’t making it up. LOL)
Okay, just a couple of pictures, nothing dramatic. The first picture is the view out of our window, facing south overlooking the Assiniboine river. Kind of fun to watch the water levels. The second picture is down the bank a bit with our fence in the frame to show the elevation remaining before it reaches our property. There’s a good 8-10 feet of vertical, so we’ve got nothing to worry about. The water’s already receding.
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For anyone interested in the data, it can be found at http://www.gov.mb.ca/waterstewardship/water_info/flood_forecasting/index.html
Right now, the floodway is handling 13,700 cubic feet per second. Or, over 102,000 Gal/sec. To compare, the American Falls (at Niagara Falls) flows at a rate of 150,00 Gal/sec. Horseshoe falls is over 600,000 gal/sec. Of course, compared to the Mighty Mississippi, this is a drop in the bucket. The Mississippi, at New Orleans, flows 600,000cfs or 4.5Million gal/sec.
Total flow in the Red today (before the floodway) is 59,500cfs. That’s 445,000 gal/sec. Flow in the city is 63,000cfs (471,000Gal).
Grand Forks is at 73,000cfs. (546Gal/sec) That’s still coming this way.
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To compare against 1997, you’ll see we’re less than half of what we got hit with in 97. Yes, this shows that the water flowing through Winnipeg in 1997 was almost double that of Niagara Falls.
Peak discharge through floodway:
74,500 cfs on May 6, 1997
557,298 (Gal)
South of floodway (before the floodway)
Peak discharge:
138,000 cfs on May 3 & 4, 1997
1,032,311 (Gal)
Downtown Winnipeg
Peak discharge:
80,000 cfs on May 3, 1997
598,441 (Gal)
North of Lockport (after the floodway)
Peak discharge:
150,000 cfs on May 4, 1997
1,122,077 (Gal)
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Some fun historical facts. These are numbers for the heart of Winnipeg. Anything after 1950 represents what would have been flowing through Winnipeg if there were no Floodway.
Previous peak unregulated* discharges:
225,000 cfs in 1826
165,000 cfs in 1852
125,000 cfs in 1861
108,000 cfs in 1950
108,000 cfs in 1996
107,000 cfs in 1979
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The Assinoine, out our back window has been rising steadily as well. I’ll try and get out to get some pictures to share with everyone.