Rainfall caused river near Rudyard in the UP to record-level flood
RUDYARD, MI -- A river in the Upper Peninsula has reached record flooding levels.
The US Geological Survey says Pine River appears to have crested around 1:30 Friday afternoon, when it crested at 17.75 feet.
The USGS reports the river is starting to slowly subside.
But residents say they have never seen the river in its fury this late in the year.
It almost looks like a scene from the spring...but there's one big difference, there's leaves changing colors. Jim Brown has kayaked Pine River near Rudyard several times this summer, and his reaction to this:
“This is unbelievable, the highest I've ever seen it ever. We usually pull our boats and put then underneath the bridge," said Brown.
The water was so high it was hitting a portion of this bridge's underbody. Several people made it out to see the record water, at what they say is a surprising time.
"I've seen it a few times in the spring when the ice melts and that, but never this time of year," said Rudyard resident Brad Springs.
"We've been there a little over 30 years and it's the fastest I've ever seen going through there," said Jack Crampton, who lives at the mouth of Pine River.
Just how fast and how much water was going through? So much, the sub-station that signals these readings read blank. The U-S Geological Survey sent a crew to find that out.
"When it goes overtop of the rating, we don't know how much water is going down stream right now, so we need to come out here and make a measurement," said Jim Wilkinson, a USGS Hydrology Technician.
Using this device that acts as a glorified fish finder, they take an acoustic discharge measurement, which tells them how much water is moving through. Right around 1-30, the river crested at 17.75 feet and had a discharge of 4,500 cubic feet per second, a volume of water that broke the 1988 record.
"Here, there's a lot of surface area here that the rain hit, so it came into the river and swelled the banks," said Wilkinson.
The USGS takes the measurements to gain information about rainfall and how it affects the flood forecast.
