Flash flood trashes trees

Here comes another one!

 

The creek is usually not even visible from this angle.

When floodwaters shove a tree downstream and force it under a bridge, the thunderous splintering cracking sound makes onlookers want to yell "Timber!" 

Eventually the tree shoots out the other side cracked and stripped of limbs, but the ones we worry about are those that slam into the bridge pilings and get stuck there, trapping other trees and debris to form an impromptu dam that can grow big enough to back up water and eventually shove the bridge downstream.

Suddenly, a sunken garden.

After the flood

We watched whole trees wash down our creek last night and listened with some trepidation to the apocalyptic crashes. What could we do? Only a fool would stand in the middle of the bridge and proclaim, "Thus far and no further!" So we stood and watched and hoped the bridge would hold.

The bridge survived. The trees did not.