What Wierd (and Cold) Weather We Have #8

I am so bumed, I spent the last hour typing to all of you and lost the hold thing.
All I can say now is, Glad you are all safe.
Laura Sorry I missed you.

I'm trying out the chair I got for DH's Christmas present; It's really cool! I probably won't be on as much as normal; no kids to force me on to the computer and I have Christmas presents to distract me.

We still have snow on the ground; about 2" which is the most we would normally get.

Mom, sorry Sage was so hard to get to bed. Thank you for running us around.

It's official, we are having flood issues here. my neighbors house was hit with the debris of a minor flash flood a little bit ago and now there's a small river coming down and around their house on 3 sides. I'm taking a small break from trying to saw out some of the woody stuff that is touching their house. I just saw 4 whole trees go down the river as well!

Oh, Red be carefull

Thanks Tilly! I will! I'm really hoping that it quites raining, and really hoping that it stays localized.

I hope the rain will let up and give the water levels a chance to go down.....take care and be safe Shelly, will keep you and your neighbors in our prayers.

We are melting rapidly up here.......this is now..........

red, so sorry to hear about the flood situation. I'll bet that was scary to see those trees coming down the river.
Susan

Trisha, we had 4 inches disappear overnight night before last due to the warm wind. When I went to bed the ground was covered, when I got up yesterday morning the snow was all but totally gone.
Susan

This was just a couple of days ago.......

It is a mess and I fear it will get worse before it gets better for so many......

This is what mine looked like 6 days ago.

And this.

This is what it looks like today.

Thanks so much for the kind thoughts Tricia and Susan! They are definitely appreciated! We finally called it "quits" for the day about 45 min. ago, after deciding that the creek was tucked in fairly secure for the night, short of taking some more really severe measures to shore it up. Which, I'm thinking that will be done tomorrow. people are so kind. So many people stopped to see if everything was all right. My boss stopped by and had his son Jeff with him, who is only a few years younger than I am, Jeff said well I'm bored, and you look as if you could use some help, where do I start digging? I said that I was a little short on shovels, but We could make it work. So Bob, my boss, said that he would go home and grab some shovels and be back in a bit. He came back with shovels, and his son in law, and all of us went at it until we thought it would hold up for the night. It made the time go by so much faster with all of them there.

Tricia, it's great that you're able to run every one around and still have the energy to do everything that you do in a day.

laura, That chair sounds fantastic! I need one like that for now! :-p

Gardner, that's a crazy amount of snow, and to have it all melt so fast. However, that warm weather looks so appealing. but, I know that it's not.

Sally, the pond pictures look great! i like seeing whats going on around there!

This message was edited Dec 29, 2008 7:15 PM

Pretty shots, guys! Good luck with any flooding.

Hey Victor, It's nice "seeing" you over here. If you're going to be "here" for a minute or two, I'm going to post some pictures of my neighbors "little mess"

Sure - I'll be up for a while longer.

ok. I'm editing as I go along. the first pic is done.

The creek brought down a bunch of debris with it, tearing up the driveway, literally. It also sprawled across the rd. and under their driveway and through a culvert. the crud wondered down to our culvert and plugged it, causing the creek to come up and start to back into our garage. Anyhow, to keep it from rising at feet per min. on our side they didn't take the time to try to unplug the culvert.... they just pulled up the driveway!

There's normally not water that would be seen in this picture.

the other side of the house that is on the left in the first picture.

I took these about 8 hours after all the debris and new creek came down.

a closer view of the same side of the house. No, there's never been a creek there before!

Thats is real ugly, poor you
Please keep us posted.
Sending all my hugs to you, be safe.

Thanks Tilly! Actually all is well here.....now, a few wet boxes in the garage, that's all. I looked like a drowned rat coming in this evening, but it actually went pretty well. The neighbor is the unfortunate one.

this is the new creek coming down behind their house

This message was edited Dec 29, 2008 7:42 PM

OOH, that's nasty. DH and I were just commenting today that if this rain keeps up, along with the snow melt, it will be flooding for sure. Sorry it's hitting you in Oregon and hope that the rain stops soon. Stay safe and dry.

OOH my goodness! That does look nasty. It looks like they are in for a rough time of it.

This message was edited Dec 29, 2008 7:44 PM

Wow - horrible! So sorry to see that. Best of luck.

rc....what a mess!! So sorry you and your neighbors are having such a hard time. How nice that everyone pulled together to get a handle on it. The son was 'bored'? What a neat guy. Be careful and I hope you get more help tomorrow. Some houses in Dexter are having the same problem. If the water can't go the way it usually does, it's makes a new path.

A big part of the problem has to be all the snow melting so quickly. Plus all the rain. We went to Canyonville today, high water everywhere and no snow except what you could see on the high hills.

Didn't go to the river today, we were gone all day. But here's what the pond looked like before I left this morning.

This is the last one. I forgot to take one of the other new creek that took out the driveway. This is the walk way, yep there's a path under there, between the house and shop.

Hope for you that its Done. Glad you are safe and sound and no real damage. Lots of love your way.

Sally, you used to have some shrubs in that pond!!

Thanks for all the kind wishes all! So far so good. I wish that I had taken an after picture, but it was actually dark anyhow. We built a makeshift levy up on the hillside that cut off the path down to their house and rerouted the creek going down the driveway. Tomorrow the plan is for them to bring in some quick setting cement to reinforce the levy, then we'll feel that it's in good shape. But, all in all, I think that it should hold, even without the cement, for at least a rise of up to 2' more in the water level.

Unfortunatly we're due for rain the rest of the week. Won't be as bad where I am, but red is in the winter storm alert area for Tuesday night through Wednesday night. Should be lighter tonight and colder, so the snow won't melt as fast. Hope it shifts and the rain goes where it's needed.

Sounds like you knew what to do and got it done. Well done!

We cleaned out some of the shrubs, but what's left is under water. More places for the froggies to hide. We want to put in native plants that will help the water. I had to move further away this morning to get the whole thing in.

This is the pond at the other end, the part that looks like shadows is actually water and the two have connected already so from here they just spread. We're going to work on it next summer. They aren't draining properly.

This message was edited Dec 29, 2008 8:09 PM

That will be a good project for next summer Sally! Definitely the summer:-p

I'm not sure what the deal is, but it has been raining constantly here. Then everytime when I go into Eugene, it's hit and miss. Back home, steady rain. I think that the valley is fairing so well because the reservoirs were actually quite low before all of this started. they have been able to take a large brunt of the impact.... so far. I noticed yesterday that Dexter res. was full and they had one or two of the flood gates open. Lookout still looks good, which is extremely helpful. But, I would imagine that it will have to open a couple of gates in a couple of days if this continues.

I looked at the forecast for my area and yours, it's very different. You still have winter storm alerts and we don't anymore. Yours says rain, ours says showers. Because of the elevation? I'm looking at the Weatherbug on my computer, not the best, but it's handy and fairly accurate.

Odd how different our forcasts are this time! usually its just the temperatures that are a little different. I would think that it's likely a combination of the elevation and the proximity to the crest. But, who knows. Chalk a point to the weird weather I guess!

We had really bad winds here this morning, almost didn't go south, but it died down finally. Had to go dig the trash bins out of the pond. I always get nervous in the winds, with all our trees. Had them thinned, but still. Looked at them today and they didn't sway much so the thinning helped.

that's nuts! Your trash bins out of the pond!? how far do they have to go before they reach the pond. good thing that you were thinking ahead with the thinning.

Probably 60ft or so. It's round and empty, so it would have been easy to roll. It's downhill to the pond, I'm always fishing stuff out.

Red, looks like quite a job for today! Not fun by the looks of things. Good that you had help to get the job done. Hope you all stay safe with the winter storm warnings they've been posting for the PNW.

I'd say send the rain this way as we still have 8" of snow on the ground and no water, no service in sight - BUT, I wished for snow for Christmas too.

And another touch of English culture for all of you PNWer's who think you hold the ticket for looneyness parades and celebration.

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-1102783/Wheels-Going-round-bend-annual-Mad-Club-soapbox-derby.html

Enjoy.

This is edited to say: I'm so sorry, I posted this on the wrong thread (meant to put it on Tils 'Hey' thread). Inappropriate to be posting fun post christmas soapbox races on the thread that is giving some of you a place to talk and find emotional relief from flooding, snow troubles, and no power. I didn't mean to be so insensitive, just lost track of which thread is which. My heart goes out to you.

This message was edited Dec 30, 2008 6:48 PM

haha, that looks like a heck of a lot of fun to me Laurie:-p we should do that here!