As you probably heard on the news (or experienced for yourself), our part of the country received a deluge over this past weekend. Western and west-central Tennessee had terrible flooding from a record rainfall (nearly 20 inches in two days!!). The Kentucky Derby (in Louisville on Saturday afternoon) was run on a postively “sloppy” track (yes, that’s the technical term).  And by Sunday afternoon, most of Kentucky was under a “flood emergency,” which I’ve never even heard of before. Several parts of the state are still flooded. Here in Lexington, we far exceeded our usual rainfall amount for the entire month of May … in just two days. Rainfall totals varied dramatically throughout this east-central part of the state, but I think we averaged around 6 inches.

I took these photos here at the Kentucky Horse Park around 9:30 on Monday morning. By the late afternoon, the water in most of these flooded areas had gone down by about half from what you’ll see here. Given that rather rapid drop in the water level, I can only imagine how dramatic these views must’ve been on Sunday!

this is usually a dry creekbed near the entrance to the Horse Park; when I took these photos, workers were picking up debris that had been deposited a couple of feet above the water level you see here

... the same (usually dry) creek, farther along Cigar Lane

view 1 of a "lake" and a "marsh" that would normally be portions of several paddocks and the same dry creekbed as shown above

... view 2 ...

... and view 3

finally, for those familiar with the "Head of the Lake" on the Rolex cross-country course: that's it in the background; the "lake" in the foreground is normally a grassy area and yet another (normally dry) creekbed between the Head of the Lake and the road