Emsworth Lock and Dam
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As part of a humble narrator’s continuing exploration of the Pittsburgh metro area, an afternoon in late March found me standing at the fence lines of an United States Army Corps of Engineers installation called the Emsworth Locks and Dam, on the Ohio River. As it turned out, I missed a dramatic set of events here which would occur in early April when an unusually high volume of rainfall caused all sorts of chaos here in the local vicinity.
Hullabaloo, I tell’s ya, hullabaloo.
The Three Rivers overflowed their banks which flooded several waterfront parcels, and here at Emsworth – 26 maritime barges which were tied up upriver that were full of minerals got loose from their moorings, and ended up wedged up against the dam.
Before you ask, I followed my usual policy of staying the hell away from such horrors unless someone was specifically going to be paying me to take the risk, in order to get a photo or deliver a video.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned above, this particular afternoon was one of my ‘exploratory trips’ wherein a series of waypoints were encoded into a Google map, which I then followed while driving the Mobile Oppression Platform from place to place. This one wasn’t a walk, it was a drive.
So far, my ‘get out there and see something’ instincts have been drawing me up the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers away from the center of Pittsburgh, with just a few ventures out and along the Ohio.
There’s a series of GPS waypoints which I’ve tagged along this river’s banks – boat launches, public parks, trails, etc. – which I’ve planned on visiting sometime in the near future, or in the case of this week’s posts – now. There’ll come a moment sometime in the future when I’m actually crossing into – y’know, the State of Ohio – which is about a 90 minute drive from Pittsburgh, here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Along the Ohio River, and this shot is from the northern side of the waterbody, there’s a pretty expansive series of rail tracks which are used by the Norfolk Southern outfit. I was hoping to catch a shot of a passing train when I was here, but no such luck was on offer. Have to get myself one of those railfan scanner radios one of these days, so I know if something interesting is coming my way.
Go west, old man.
Back with all that, at this – your Newtown Pentacle, tomorrow.
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