What Would the Media Do Without The Annual Flood At Paddlewheel Park?
Monday, June 11, 2012 @ 3:44 AM
Every year around this time the news business gets slow for some reason and then with a little help of Mother Nature, we get to take some fresh pictures of the Fraser River rising above the banks at Paddlewheel Park. As luck would have it, the lower mainland also is short of news and they gladly buy into picking up some footage of the “flood” in Prince George.
If you took the time to check into the archives of Opinion250 you will discover that we have reported the story and shown those pictures since our inception. Matter of fact you could take some of the old pictures and use them every year, because the people who own the house closest to the park, that’s the one that always makes the news, hasn’t been painted lately.
I recall many years ago running down to take some pictures for the TV station where I worked. I came aground in my boat on something near the house only to be told by the owner that I had stopped on top of his bar-b-q.
So the bottom line is that we in the media head down to the river the moment that it looks like flooding and get some new footage.
This year for some rather stupid reason, the Gabion dikes were installed along the centre of the street, maybe the gabion people wanted to get their product on TV. Because why the city would even consider building a dike in the area, for what? The city, if they were so concerned ,as they apparently were along the Nechako , they could buy the whole works of the homes along the section that floods for a song, and then for a few more bucks put up a small dike to prevent the water from crossing the street.
But alas it makes too much sense to yell "flood" and then have the provincial people pick up the tab for the work mitigating the flood. Problem with all that is that we are taxpayers in the province as well. It costs us money to live here and the work along the roadway near Paddlewheel Park leaves you scratching your head and it isn’t because of the mosquitoes.
I’m Meisner and that’s one man’s’ opinion.
Comments
Its always interesting to get your opinion Mr Meisner. I was just listening to Dan Rather discussing his book “Rather Outspoken: My life in the news”, and I was wondering when you will be putting out yours. I would be interested in it.
LOL!
Speaking of Gabion dikes. A lot of the ones that were used on River Road during the Ice Jam Flood 2007/2008 (Not to be confused with the Spring Freshet Flood) are totally wrangled, ripped, and ruined, and thrown in two piles along the Nechako River trail by the Pas Lumber.
Seems they had some trouble getting the sand out and basically wrecked the Gabion dikes and abandoned them.
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