Duck River, Swollen And Mighty, Draws Gawkers In Columbia

The swollen Duck River is still the sight to see in Columbia as flood waters slowly recede.

The torrential weekend rain pushed the Duck into major flood stage, and waters released upstream have kept the river high.

Maury County residents want to see how the typically babbling brook has become the mighty Duck. Semoria Yarbough, a retired General Motors employee, lives off Riverside Drive, which has been submerged for days. She notes the unusually high volume of car and pedestrian traffic since the rain stopped.

“They’re very fascinated by it,” she says of the onlookers, “I guess because this is the most excitement or action that goes on on this side of the river. It’s really pretty quiet over here.”

Ronnie Sheeter works for the city of Columbia and is cleaning up a park along the Duck River after flooding over the weekend. A couple of nearby buildings had water inside.
pic.twitter.com/I4C2O4rmZk— Blake Farmer (@flakebarmer)
February 25, 2019

Despite the epic looking scene — with playgrounds, pavilions and parking lots under water — only about a dozen properties had to evacuate.

The river flooded Tim Duncan’s basement. But the Riverside Drive resident says prior floods inundated his first floor.

“It was a little less than the 2010 flood and way less than the 1991 flood,” says Duncan, who’s lived there since 1989. “But with all the rain we got, we were a little worried that it was going to get to a historic level.”

The
crest was still about 2 feet shy of the level from May of 2010, according to the National Weather Service. But the water level has stayed high as the Tennessee Valley Authority releases water from the dam on Normandy Lake, which is full.

Very heavy rainfall in Middle Tenn. has caused high river stages on the Duck River. Releases from Normandy Dam are approx. 14,000 cubic feet per sec. and we are using all available storage in the lake to limit downstream impacts as much as possible.
#TNWX
pic.twitter.com/kG65xraX5z— Tennessee Valley Authority (@TVAnews)
February 23, 2019

The river is projected to return to normal levels by this weekend.