Corvallis flooding, January 2012

Drove into town today. Sick of the rain and all that water around the house. Town looked much better, well drier anyway. Went to check on a friend who had earlier been filling sand bags, fortunately the water in the stream behind their house had receded and all was well. They had taken footage of the stream in full flood and it looked pretty impressive. Still it seemed to be back to normal and business as usual.

 

Our house has water kind of all around. The back paddock is flooded right up to our door step. The poor old water trough (which was full and just out the garden gate), has long floated away. We have water up to the side pavers and flowing by the kitchen. One of the half rounds from alongside the driveway has been swept up and away.

 

Today our bridge was very popular. There is a river monitoring station by our house and the monitoring people were here all day. They returned at the end of the day and called out a hello while I was standing out back. It was one of the guys we had met a couple of years ago when we first moved in here. He said they had people coming by all day saying they had lived here all their lives and never seen it like this. I think that is why it took them so long to gather their data. At one stage there were at least half a dozen cars lined up and out jumped all these photographers. We were quite the freak show.

 

Anyway, the kids have just discovered that....school is closed, the entire district is closed tomorrow due to the flooding. Apparently there are a heap of roads with excess water, and about half a dozen that are closed altogether. Talk about celebrations at our house. They truely do think they have won the lottery.

 

Just one problem, Reagan, who wore her gumboots to school today and raced to wheel the wheelie bin through all the puddles this afternoon (for tomorrow mornings early rubbish pick up) has just discovered that one of her boots has a hole! But I want to go play in the puddles! So this is the only major emergency - can we fix her gumboots so she can indulge in a bit of puddle jumping tomorrow?

 

Watching traffic go down our road is just like watching tv - we can see quite a way down where the road is flooded. Lots of vehicles plow through, some stop, many turn around. Lots of lights flashing, cars turning all over the place. I think I would be a turn around girl myself. Wouldn't like to plunge into flood water in the dark. I don't think half of them would even see where the road was at this stage, its so murky.

 

We are presently on water conservation, not so much consumption of, just not flushing the toilet too often or taking long showers etc. The house owner said the only thing to worry about is the septic tank. With the flooding it might just not handle things. I must confess to being the worst offender in the house. I flush and then realise what I have done. Must pay more attention!

 

Fortunately we woke to receding water. Let's see what the day brings in terms of rain. Trust the sun is shining in your slice of paradise. Desray