Friday, October 30, 2009

More Rain!

It rained a lot yesterday, apparently. It didn't look like all that much to me, but the ditches and runoff waterfalls on the mountains disagreed. I had planned to go to a writer's meeting in Fayetteville after work, but Zack called to say that the bridges were already flooded down the road and that meant a long trip in the back way. So, I decided to not attend the meeting and just go home instead.

Lucky thing, too. By the time I'd picked Gabrielle up from her friend's house and started toward home, a lot more rain had fallen. We decided to try the first alternate route, where there is only one bridge to cross. That wouldn't work because that creek was swollen and the bridge was already flooded. The only other route is almost an hour of dirt road, but other than opting to stay in town, it was the only choice. So we went that way.

To say there is no bridge is a little deceiving. The reason there is no bridge is because the road just goes through the creek down near the end of our driveway. The water was pretty high in that spot, and I stopped the truck and backed up to the last neighbor's house instead. Made a call to Zack to let him know where we were and decided we'd better walk it first to see just how deep it was.

Gab and I, with flashlights and supervision from our neighbor Don, rolled up our pants and waded in. The water was freezing! I see why people get hypothermia after getting caught in flash floods. We stopped when the water reached our knees and we hadn't made it to the swift part yet. Just a little too scary for me. So Don cranked up the school bus and we drove across it in the bus to get an idea of how deep it would be. The water only came up to the second step for a little while (that's the determining factor). We thought the truck would make it.

And it did. But the water reached the bottom of the headlight at the lowest point, and that's a little out of my comfort zone for crossing creeks and I won't do it again. This morning it was a lot lower and we left after daybreak so we could see. But the kids got to school late and I was really late getting into work.

Hope we get our sunny weather forecasted for the weekend. We need to dry out a bit.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow; that is some weather story. I saw the flooding in Little Rock , on television. I didn't realize that in the mountainous area you would have such problems.

Every year, here in the desert, people in cars are washed away and drowned crossing " washes " that have flooded from rain. Water is heavy and moving water is powerful.

Be careful ....... bob

Diane said...

I live about 200 yards from the Kankakee River in Illinois, its very very high and the ditches along the roads are almost to overflowing and the water is pouring out of the corn fields. Lots of rain. Farmers say to wet to bring in the corn and its starting to rot on the stalks. Bad Situation, wet wet October.

Roxann said...

Oh yeah, there's lots of flash flooding here. It's not like the floods in the desert where a wall of water appears down a dry wash, though. Usually there's a small creek and it just swells until the creek can't contain the water any more. But it does this fast sometimes. There's a limit to how high the water can be to safely cross it, and it also depends on what you're driving. In the car, I won't cross a bridge with much water at all. In the truck, because it is so much heavier, we can tolerate a lot more. But when the water is really angry and tumbling over the bridge carrying trees, and even big rocks, there is no safe passage. We just have to stay put until it calms down.

I didn't realize it was so wet out in the corn fields this fall. That is bad. If it is a widespread issue, feed prices will go up for sure.

NitWit1 said...

Praise the LOrd. THE SUN IS SHINING. We've had it in Bull Shoals with rain. The Lake came up 2 feet Thursday night and we are about 20' above pool. This Lake holds lots of water. We are expection Beaver and Table Rock to dump some our way soon in addition to our own runoff.

BE careful crossing those creeks. It really scares me to cross so-called low water bridges.

Roxann said...

Yes! The sun is shining here, too. It's supposed to stay that way for days!