Monday, December 10, 2007

Keeping my head above water

My computer crashed. The phone lines were full of static. Rain kept falling and falling. The creek rose. The snow melted. More rain fell. More snow melted. The creek rose some more.

All this may or may not explain why I've been pretty much out of touch for the past few days.

When we left for church yesterday morning, the fields were still covered with snow. When we got home, the snow was gone and the creek had widened from bank to bank, but it was only about six inches deep under our bridge. Around midafternoon I glanced the window and saw water. "That's odd," I thought; "The creek is not normally visible from this window." So I walked down to take a look and found that the creek had risen to within a few feet of the bridge. That's at least a seven-foot rise in water level in about three hours--and it was still raining.

Fortunately, the river was low enough to allow the creek to drain quickly, and by this morning the water level had fallen by a foot or two. No damage so far, although I did see a few large chunks of tree rushing downstream. After the water recedes, I'm sure we'll find some major limbs trapped against the bridge piers--but at least the bridge itself isn't under water. More rain is in the forecast for another few days, so who knows what could happen?

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