Humble Beginnings

The Flood of June 2007

We live a relatively simple life - no cable or Directv, no "bunny ears", no news (except for what we read on the internet) and only cell phones instead of a home phone. 

My in-laws live down the hill from us about 100 yards, at the bottom of the hill.  About 50 yards in front of them is a wet-weather creek that's been pretty full all year because of the excess rain we've had this year. 

Well, last night about the time we were headed to be a storm was blowing in.  I didn't think much of it ... at the time.  The power went out around midnight, but the storm was so strong, I could see the lightning in the house & it hit around our house about 3 times.  On one of those hits it blew the fuse on the transformer and the power went out.

We tried calling Johnny's parents but they weren't answering their house phone or their cell phones.  So, Johnny would shine his Q-beam down there through their windows to let them know we were OK and they reciprocated with the same.  He would also check the creek by shining his Q-beam down there.  It rose to his parent's front yard, about 20' from their house. 

After several hours of SEVERE rain, wind, thunder and lightning, the heavy part of the storm passed and we had a light shower for the remainder of the night. 

I woke up this morning to a voice mail and a text message from my co-worker and boss to make sure we were OK.  We live about 2 miles outside of town and unbeknownst to us, they were evacuating people from their homes because of the flooding and moving them to the local high school for safety.  We're surrounded by two forks of the same river and the south fork (headed into town) was flooded.  The north fork was almost flooded.  A small creek just inside of town was completely washed out (pavement, guard rails and all).  We had no idea any of this was going on (as we have no power for any updates).

We went driving this morning to check things out (barely making it out of our driveway) and discovered that most, if not all, of the low water crossings were completely covered by 4' of rushing, swirling water.  At one of the blocked roads, we heard a honk behind us and saw a huge National Guard vehicle behind us. We moved out of the way and they proceeded down to the river with a truckload of divers, already suited up to go in the water. 

Thank God, but we have heard of no fatalities in this area.  Apparently this storm was so severe it stretched from Central Texas up through Missouri, killing a few people in Dallas.

I have never seen it like this.  It flooded here in '82 but this is the first time the National Guard has ever been called in to assist.  It was truly an eye-opening experience.  I have a few pictures of the rivers.  I'm going to try to post them later.

I thank God that we're all safe, our home is safe and everyone we know is safe.  It's supposed to rain again tonight and the rest of the week.  One town about 50 miles away had 19" of rain.  They're a lake community and have pretty much been wiped out.  One of their local banks was struck by lightning and burned down.  Another lake house was struck by lightning and also burned to the ground.  In addition, their bridges have been deemed unstable and have been shut down.

It's a scary situation, but things seem to be stabilzing.  If it rains anymore, we won't be able to leave the property because our driveway will be flooded by the creek.  And, we're surrounded by the two forks of a rather large river.  Things could be really weird if it rains again like it did last night.  The river in Austin has risen 14' and they're expecting it to rise a total of 25', maybe higher.

It's absolutely crazy.  Please pray for us around here!  We may need it tonight.

Oh, did I mention that my FIL saw a 3' coral snake down by their house?????  The good news is that the scorpions could be drowned!!!

question

{ 11:05 , Thursday, July 5, 2007 } { Posted by Anonymous }

how do you get on the internet with a cell phone? we have to use a regular phone for that.