These pictures of the Mississippi River were taken from the roof of, and just outside of, the AutoZone Store Support Center in downtown Memphis on 05/06/2011. The river was at about 45 ft., 11 ft. above flood stage and still about about 3 feet from the projected crest. I'll try to post some more picture of the river at crest height later this week.
Click the pictures below for larger images.
This set of pictures was taken from the AutoZone roof, about 9 stories up from the back street. The first picture shows the view to the south, with the I-55 bridge in the background, and the early stages of flooding at the Riverside Dr. and Beale St. intersection near the middle of the image. The second picture is a shot straight west of the building, overlooking the river and Arkansas beyond; the line of trees that appear to be in the middle of the river is actually the Arkansas riverbank. The third picture provides a view to the north, with the i_40 bridge and Mud Island prominently featured. The flooding of the southern part of the island can be seen pretty clearly.
These two pictures were taken on the street directly behind AutoZone. The first, while not a great picture of the river, shows the view from the window near my cube. It used to be a much nicer view when I worked a floor up, but hey, I can't complain about this. The second picture is a bit more exciting, showing a street level view of Mud Island, with the I-40 bridge in the background. Riverside Dr., which has seen a sharp rise in foot traffic since the flooding began, is in the bottom of the frame.
The last two pictures are of the Riverside Dr. and Beale St. intersection, which was the first part of downtown to flood. In the first image I was fortunate enough to catch a trolley going by, which I think makes for a cool picture. The trolleys have also seen an increase in business from the onlookers. The second shot is just from a different angle; I liked this shot because the street railing seems to be sticking up from nowhere.
