Like many other locations along the Missouri River, the place where I live is experiencing flooding. Only a few parts of the city are prone to flooding, mostly those areas close to the river, such as Riverfront Park, the sewage treatment plant, and Landing Park. Leavenworth, unlike some of the other cities along the Missouri, increases in elevation as one travels west. The bluffs on this side of the river are what led Colonel Leavenworth to violate his orders regarding the fort he was instructed to create. Finding the eastern side of the river to be a floodplain and potentially unhealthy because of the mosquitoes, he chose to enter into Indian territory and to build his fort on the bluffs overlooking the river and, coincidentally, at the same location where the French had created a fort previously.
The photos below of Landing Park record the rising water, beginning in late May, with the earliest ones appearing at the bottom of the post. Clicking on any one picture will increase its size.
Even though there have been health warnings regarding the presence of E.coli because of the sewage treatment plants upriver not treating their waste, there are still people fishing in these flood waters--either for recreation or out of desperation.
