Exploring An Event In Flickr

I get a lot of ideas for educational applications from my own learning needs. We have been in the midst of a serious flood threat in the Red River (Fargo, Grand Forks, and surrounding communities). This is not the first time for us. We were here for the flooding of Grand Forks in 1997. I am writing this as the flood approaches the crest and how this will turn out has yet to be determined. Fargo is experiencing record river levels, but so far the dikes are holding.

I take pictures in situations like this. This is a serious situation and being obnoxious about taking pictures can get you in trouble. However, these are events that shape our lives and so I collect images when I can. I put a few of these images on Flickr and in doing so I notice that my Flickr account has received considerable attention in the past few days.

grabeflickrgraph

When I examined the images that were being viewed, it turned out they were from the flood (most actually from a less serious flood in 2006). This became the starting point for my exploration of the images that were presently being collected.

I explored in a couple of ways and I am certain there are several more. You can simply search by tag and then use recent.

flickrflood

I geotagged most of my contributions so I also tried searching for images by location. The best strategy seemed to be Explore a place (Grand Forks) and then search this map using a specific term (flood, redriver).

flickrfloodsearch

Most of the geotagged images I located were associated with bridges. This is where I have taken most of the pictures I have collected because access is not prohibited.

P.S. – Presently the rise in the river has slowed because of very cold weather (single digits at night). This has delayed the crest, but has allowed some of the water to move through with less risk.

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