West Texas is still in a drought, so perhaps the lack of water might be what triggers mental images of an over abundance. I saw a computer generated map of the 100 year flood map of Midland last month, and I've been hoping for a way to display it on this website. But it doesn't look like that will be possible. For anyone interested, a hard copy of the map is available for purchase from the city for $20.
But, the easiest way to see it is to download the map in PDF form from the City of Midland website. Here's the link (PDF). Be patient, it's a hefty 1.82 MB. But, it's worth the effort.
It's fascinating to see a depiction of the Midland River snaking its way from the Northwest city limit down to Scharbauer Draw, and it looks like a lot of residential areas could experience some flooding. There was a flood on May 9, 1968, in Midland (for excerpts from the May 9 and 10, 1968, Midland Reporter-Telegram, go here), and that could have been the last local "100 year" flood. The article said that officials estimated from 500 to 700 homes were flooded. And, with a casual look at the 100 year flood map it's easy to see how that could result.
November 19 was GIS Day, and the Department of Development Services Planning Division of the City of Midland participated with demonstrations of what the geographic information services can do. (Go here for my report on that.) There is a lot of useful information available from the city. Here's a link to the index within the City of Midland website with links to some other city maps available for downloading. For example, there are maps showing water usage, zoning, voting precincts, city council districts, and others. There is a lot of information there. We are privileged that our city made the investment necessary to get this information system. And, the people working in that department are providing a valuable service.
I would like to give a special "Thank You" to Jeffrey W. Jordan, GIS Specialist with the city of Midland, for directing me to this wealth of information. Keep up the good work!
If you look, there are also a bunch of blue "lakes" that form and are not attached to the drainage ditch. I doubt that the city has sufficient sewers and pumps for all these areas, so it looks like during the next flood several huge lakes may appear that could take more than a week to evaporate/manually pump out.
Posted by: Bert9785 | December 10, 2003 at 05:22 PM
Bert, you may be right. It looks like many of those lakes are centered at the low lying parks that already serve as reservoirs, such as Wadley/Barron, Hill and Grafa.
Posted by: George | December 11, 2003 at 02:19 PM
I think this is s a very informative Site !
Posted by: Emma | June 19, 2004 at 06:43 PM
My family lived on Marmon Street off Maxwell, south of Emerson Elementary. We had a water line 6 feet high on our backyard fence and 3 feet inside the house. People were being rescued by airboat, and the Lee High School swim team rescued people's pets...ours included. I was in 4th grade at Emerson at the time.
2 years later we had just moved to Corpus when Hurricane Celia hit!
Posted by: Bill | May 10, 2005 at 01:09 PM
You seem to have got the niche from the root, Awesome work
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