Sunday, September 12, 2021

The portables are gone at Walt Whitman High School

 

Notice anything different?  For the past few years there have been portable classrooms in this section of the parking lot, since the new wing is open they are no longer needed and have been removed.

Here's how this part of the parking lot looked earlier this year with the portables still in place.


You can tell exactly where the portables were because the blacktop has square patches where the classrooms were anchored down.

The new sign is now (mostly) done, proudly proclaiming the name of the school.  The black rectangle should get an LED variable message sign at some point in the future.

Here's the new classroom wing. The building is ready but there is still work that needs to be done on landscaping, water retention, and paving. Even though the parking lot has been striped, it has not been paved to be even to the curp bottom, another layer of blacktop is still to be added.


I understand that they might not want water going into the water retention areas yet since they are not complete, but it seems like an overkill and more permenant than needed to brick the drainage cuts up.



Friday, September 3, 2021

High water at Great Falls

 Wednesday the remnants of Hurricane Ida came through the Bethesda area and left a lot of water. I have been tracking the forecasts for the Potomac River and it was projected to peak this morning.  I went to Great Falls today to take a look, here are some comparisons for how it looks today and how it looks in slightly more normal times.

Great Falls on the Potomac River as seen from the Olmsted Island overlook.  This photo was taken in July of 2020, the water is a little bit higher than normal for mid summer.

Great Falls on the Potomac River as seen from the Olmsted Island overlook.  This photo was taken this morning. Compare it to the photo above that was taken last year,  All the rocks seen in that photo are submerged, only a few small trees on them poke above the water on the left side of the photo.


From Olmsted Island overlook looking across the Potomac River to the Virginia side.  This photo was taken in April of 2021, the water in the spring is usually higher than in the summer. On the far shore you can see the Virginia overlooks, and in the middle of the picture you can see a large tree trunk wedged between the rocks well above the waterline.

This is a photo taken this morning from almost the same spot as the prior photo. You can see the overlooks on the far shore, and, you can see the same tree trunk wedged between the rocks (and partially obscured by tree leaves. This time the river is within a few feet of it.