Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Some local pictures

I figured I would run up the street and head up the trail once I got past the police.... but  the trails were marked closed and had "fire line, do not cross" tape across the entrances. I decided to continue my run of obeying the laws, for the most part, and I ran around the area instead. The last time there was flooding was in the 60's and it was minor compared to last week.

Here is what the creek normally looks like at this time of year:
I stole that, but they watermarked it so thanks plain adventure photography and google You can see the water isn't deep, nor fast flowing. Even in the deepest pools it's only gotten to be a couple of feet deep in the past.

Here is what it looks like now. I added some color arrows, cause I have mad skills, and gave you some play by plays.
 The creek in the first picture runs into a second creek right here (2nd creek comes in on the left). The second creek is rarely ever flowing at 1/4 the volume of the 1st, so the first picture reduced 75% in water volume. You can see the difference, I'm standing on a bridge that has a rock wall that was underwater several times during the few days of rain.

 The areas circled in red are 5-6 feet from the current water level to almost road level.
 The area to the left is a flatter area, it flooded entirely, along with the unmarked right side and road
 This road was completely underwater, the creek is on the left side. The right arrow shows the up-slope to our house (well not really but the slope/height is similar) or at least how high and wide the water would need to spread/climb to get us wet.
 This is taken from back at one of our MAG members driveway. The bridge at the arrows isn't structurally sound anymore (unless you are a resident....), this entire area was underwater. The houses along the creek, on each side of the bridge could be total losses. This morning the MAG guys threw the road closed signs into the bushes so they could get trash service. They both had some water issues but nothing like those closer to the creek. One has a sump pump, and tests it each month... none of the neighbors sump pumps worked and they couldn't remember the last time they bothered to check them.
Here is a video a MAG member sent me AFTER just the first afternoon/night of rain... and we had 4 more days of water after that. You can see the creek almost over the road in the video, super tame compared to what I saw today. I realize it's sideways, but unless you can tell me how to fix that when it's shot on an iphone.... suppose you have to deal with it. I have a monitor that I can rotate 90 degrees, hopefully you do as well.

Forgive my hand, I had a lot of running done at this point and it's about 70% humidity or more, very unusual for the area, and very draining. This shows the slope of the roads, this road didn't flood out, it just contributed to the flooding on the lower road. This road was constantly covered in water from the upslope runoff.
This picture shows the area above our street. The arrows point to the 2 water reservoirs (that are full for the first time in 6+ years) but it also shows the slope so you can image the constant flood of water from this area down to the main streets. If either dam broke (or both) the water wouldn't hit us, but it would make our place like an island.
The main streets are all sloped downhill, with all the runoff ending up in the creek pictured up top. The entire time the creek is flooding, the runoff from this entire area was helping add to the volume for those further down the line. I never thought I would see sandbags in the area, and filling sandbags is part of the fun I'm glad I missed.
This 55 gallon bucket is under a large tree and bush. That's a lot of rain to make it past both obstacles and almost fill it up. I'm going to use this water for the garden this weekend, it needs to dry out some so I don't get more mushrooms growing. All this moisture has the mushrooms growing like ragweed, and they are all deadly.

Almost time for the gym. I have to get pumped up to return to work tomorrow.


5 comments:

  1. I guess the video came out correctly, computers are smart. Also, those street signs in the photo don't mean anything so I hope nobody raids some poor strangers house looking for our foods.

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  2. Here in California we are getting word that there are people who need to be rescued due to destroyed roads but that they refuse to leave their homes since they have food, water, and a generator. The news report was stating how these people are putting themselves in danger because the roads may not be fixed for months. Kind of made me chuckle that the reporter just didn't get it that these people don't need rescuing.

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    1. A customer at work, right now, I can hear complaining about the rain and how they are tired of it....

      I can only hope that I'll be one of those people to tell the 'rescuers' to use the resources elsewhere, if that time ever comes where someone thinks I need a rescue.

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  3. Maybe things will settle down and dry out. It's a shame so many people had flood damage, I hope they had their insurance ducks in a row.

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    1. We are debating getting flood insurance, it's the only thing that will protect our basement if water seeps in, hopefully those on the stream had some (usually mandated when you have a mortgage and are that close to water).

      The ground is still super soaked, today is sunny so it's helping keep everything nice and dry.

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