Ancient Floods

The first pic here is a current shot of the Burnside Bridge. Notice the sharp line of demarcation between the light colored concrete below and the darker shade above. This is a flood mark. As you can see, at some time in the past the Willamette River rose to about the height of the top of the bridge pier on the left side of the picture. This is about 20-25 feet from the level of the river in the photo.

This is a photo of a photo of the famous Portland Christmas Day flood of December 1964. Yes, the old sloat took this picture...he was a young sloat then. Blow up the picture and at the top right you can see the Burnside Bridge. The water is almost up to the steel beams on the bottom of the bridge, and the pier is not visible. The water in the picture is about as high as the mark in the newer photo. That watermark was reinforced in February 1996, when the Willamette rose to about the same level for the only time since 1964. Also notice that the waterfront on the west side of the river has a freeway and only a fairly narrow pedestrian walkway. In the 1970s the freeway was torn up and replaced by a park. Imagine that!