March 2011 video showing the East Branch after the ice jam cleared
I saw some weather reports about how western and northern New York got another shelling of snow Sunday and into Monday. Some areas of the North Country received 32 inches of snow. That was on top of the crazy amount of snow they got when we got ours down here in New Jersey. After a call last month I took a ride up to shovel the roofs before they collapsed. Well, guess where I'll be with in the next week. I am attending the Orvis Guide Rendezvous next week in Millbrook, so I'll most likely head up there to check on the place and shovel it out.
In addition to the news about the snow I heard that my town was under a flood watch and parts were already flooded. This time the East Branch of the Ausable River had an ice jam that backed up the river and flooded out a neighborhood known as the Jersey Section, or Jersey as they call it. It rose four feet in less than two hours. By this morning the pressure had cleared the ice jam and the water receeded. In 2007 the bridge next to my house was the scene of an ice jam that flooded a section of Jay which is right across the river from us. Heavy machinery was brought in to clear the ice and open the river.
March 2007 video showing the ice jam being cleared at the Junction Pool, where the East and West Branches of the Ausable River meet-