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Connecticut River Museum in Essex examines the history of flooding along the river
ESSEX, Conn. (WTNH) — A new exhibit opens today at the Connecticut River Museum in Essex. It is called 'Rising Waters,' and it takes a look at the history of flooding along the river, with an emphasis on what can be done to deal with more floods in the future.
It turns out the Connecticut River was created by flooding thousands of years ago when northern Connecticut was a giant glacial lake.
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'Eventually, it overran its banks and began flowing south from today what is about Rocky Hill down towards what we now call Long Island Sound,' Elizabeth Kaeser, the Executive Director of the Connecticut River Museum, explained.
The exhibit on the museum's top floor includes many photos of the damage from floods in 1936 and 1938.
'Their damage was extreme. The cost was horrible,' Kaeser said. 'Lives were lost. Structures were lost.'
The flooding is largely a natural event, but mankind has had an impact on the Connecticut River and how it floods, especially in the last 100 years. The 1936 flood put much of Hartford underwater, so leaders decided to make some changes, building levies and burying the Park River underground.
Floods still impact communities on the Connecticut River, however. We saw that two years ago when rare summer floods devastated many farms. Now, people are looking at more natural ways to control the water.
'Are there ways that we can have less impervious surfaces near our rivers to help the ground take up more of the work of holding the water?' Kaeser asked.
The exhibit runs until August 3rd, and the museum hopes to get people talking about floods.
'To bring people together to start to have some of those conversations,' said Kaeser. 'To plant some seeds and to think about where do we go from here?'
The museum building itself was inundated with water back in the 1930s, and the question is, with water levels rising globally, how can we keep that from happening again?
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