Flooding

January 25, 2010.  Monday.

Situation:  Early this morning, it is still raining.  Out of my office window, I can see water over the banks in the creek down by the deer stand, water in the skating pond.  I see the most water on the oversized lawn of one of our neighbors, where water from the creek is rising in their McBackyard.  There is also water streaming down the path beside the summer house and pooling in the lane behind it, and water gushing in the drainage ditch in front of our property.   As I drive to work shortly after 10, I see water up to the top of the drainage ditch that runs along our right-of-way along one side of the development, water streaming down the lawn between two houses outside of the drainage swales put in by the developer (there’s no water in the holding pond that the developer put in), water on the road near the entrance to the development, and water rushing fast in the stream that comes down from the S_____ C_____ hills and cuts through the development.  On S____ Road, there is dirt and cinders that must have been swept across the road when that stream was higher sometime earlier this morning or last night.  As I turn onto O__ C____ Road, I see that stream rushing down through the field and along the road and gushing up at the drain to the pipe below S____ Road.  Then after I pass the new jail and come to Q____ Road, I see the creek (now coming closer to where it enters P____ Creek) flooding in the low lands and going into people’s backyards.  When I come to the second bridge, the one closest to Route YYY, water is coursing over it, and it is impassable.  I have to turn around, and take Old Route XXX to get to YYY.  Now I see Township trucks and bulldozers on the road, apparently responding to these flooding conditions. I work during the late morning and early afternoon, and get home around 2.  Moi’s not home when I arrive, and it has pretty much stopped raining.  I put on my snow suit, and instead of my orange wool cap, I don my father’s Air Force Sergeant World War II safari helmet, and Mway and I take our walk.

State of the Path:  The lawn is soggy.  There is water up to the top of Moi’s garden pond, and water in the path along it.  Moi has covered up the trash in the walled garden with plastic sheets.  As we come to the pig pen, the path becomes just one long pool of water or a soggy muddy mess.  I step as much as I can into the weeds, but even here most of the time, especially down at bug land, I can still feel water welling up inside my boots.  I take the side path along the old orchard, and see the several little streams that pop up in the back acre during rains and in the spring.  These streams gather together and become even more prominent in the maples down by the wigwams, where they then flow into bug land.  Down below the wigwam, the water in the path is flowing.

State of the Creek:  Since the rain has stopped, the creek is back within its banks, but it is up to the top of them, and the water is coursing along strongly, swishing against the banks, over rocks and against logs.  All along the creek, I can see where it earlier this morning flowed over the banks and swept away dead vegetation.  Leaves and dead weeds are piled and draped against logs and shrubs; there are areas where the vegetation is swept away completely and bare dirt is showing.  At one bend in the creek, where logs tend to accumulate, one log has been swept up onto the bank, and several new logs have been caught between the banks, along with a gray plastic barrel that came from who knows where.  The plank at the drainage stream to bug land has been flung into the shrubs, and I have to place it back in place to cross the stream.  I can see in bug land where water earlier swept through the high grass.  I try to walk by the skating pond, but the feed channel is filled with water and it is too wide and the banks too muddy for me to try to hop across it.

The Fetch:  The clearing is one of the drier places, but even so the grass there is soggy.  I step into the dead goldenrod to throw the stick, and today Mway fetches it about 8 times, splashing water and mud up onto me from the ground as she spins around at my feet between each fetch.  As we’re heading back toward the house, Mway, who always has to be ahead of me of me when she has her stick in her mouth, passes me on the path, catching my walking stick when its point is in the mud and breaking a part of it off.   In the walled garden, I hear Moi calling out to me.  She comes to meet me and wants to walk down to the creek.  Mway goes into the water in Moi’s garden pond to wash off and drops her stick at the edge.  We all walk down to the creek again and back up.  At the clearing, Mway starts prancing up and down, expecting me to throw stick again.  But I brush her aside, and at the walled garden, I call out, “Where’s your stick.”  Mway finds it where she left it and carries it back to the house.