Dec. 27, 2007 Amazing what you learn from the newspaper!
My brother, Jonathan, was interviewed by the newspaper on Christmas Eve at a Christmas dinner. I didn't think he'd actually be in the newspaper, but there was a segment about him on the second page. This is what I learned:
My dad is a pastor (What?)
Jon's name is actually spelled Jonathon
There was nearly a foot of water under our house during the flood (We live on a hill, people. Noah was in his ark last time it was flooded at my house!)
The pastor saw the storm coming and got everyone to the church for safety (No, the church was surrounded by 6 feet of water. Dad, the firefighter, got everyone to the Grange.)
Uh... tejrkwke dsj kew rwilkwlek! (That was my head bonking the keyboard) The guy interviewed Jon and the pastor's son at the same time and mixed them up. *rolls eyes*
Are all newspapers that... uh... Is there a word for that? A few years ago when a local soldier, Joe, was killed serving our country in Iraq, they quoted my brother, David, as saying, "Oh, I knew it was going to happen." O.o David never said anything even remotely close to that!
Yes, I don't like our newspaper. Was it that obvious? |
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If you're just joining us and wondering what on earth I'm posting about, here's a sum-up of the events.
Early on the morning of Monday, December 3rd, it started to rain. By 6am, we had gotten three inches of rain at our house. By that night, we had gotten an estimated 15 inches of rain in our valley. The water flow of the river near the town of Doty was 21,000 cubic feet per second in the record flood we had in '96. When the gauge broke, we were at 41,000 and counting. The estimation is that the river made it into the 80,000's.
As of March 24th, I'm taking down most of this post. Instead, I'm going to tell you to go to www.BoistfortValley.com for more details on our friendly, little disaster.
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Susan asked her son to make up a button to link back to this post that you can put into your sidebar if you're interested. Thank you for putting it together, Ryan! That's the Applebees Island inside Lake Walmart.
If you want to put up the button, copy and paste this into your template and take out all of the stars (the *'s):
<*br><*center><*a href="http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/PunmasterTheThird/444111/">
<*img src="http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/6654/floodcopywx5.jpg" 'border=0' (no ' ) ><*/a><*/center><*br/>
Thank you!
The LCLC (Lewis County Local Contact)
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Dec. 11, 2007 School is OVER!
Yep, I took my German final today, and school is officially over. I also had an interview for a volunteer position at the college (working at the Writing Center. Are you surprised?).
So now the update on the valley: Barn fires.
What?
Warning! Science content!
Yes, I did say barn fires. When hay gets damp, it begins to rot. The process of rotting gives off heat. When a whole pile of hay gets wet, it all begins to heat up. Insulated by the hay around it, the core gets hotter and hotter. Finally, it gets hot enough that it catches on fire. This can also happen if the hay was too green when it was baled. That's why barns sometimes burned down in the good ol' days. A little trivia for you. Are you kids taking notes?
My dad and brothers were called out on a possible barn fire last night, but the owner (Aaron) said to just let it burn. With all the damage it's had, he just wants it gone (as long as it doesn't bring the house down with it). It was just smoking last night, so I don't know if we'll see fireworks across the valley or not. I hear that Aaron piled all the nasty, wet stuff from the house in the barn to get burned down, too. That's one way to get rid of it, I guess...
You know, it brings to mind a quote that is commonly repeated at our house (said many years ago by my dear friend, Susan) "It's all going to burn someday!" Or in our case, "What's not washed away will burn someday." |
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Dec. 10, 2007 Live from the EOC!
We just finished eating a wonderful pancake breakfast here at the EOC (Emergency Operations Center). It's now over a week since the storm that rocked our universe. Still no water, but most people have electricity (and phones, internet, etc). The National Guard brought water to us, though.
Everything is pretty much under control, but tempers are starting to run a little hot on the 8th straight day. Your prayers about that would be appreciated.
Also, there are a few cases of people in the next town over coming down with E. Coli and dysentery. (Dysentery? Wasn't that just a sickness in the computer game Oregon Trail? I guess not...) It's from contaminants in the mud/water (although right now those words can be interchangeable). We've told people to wash up often and wear rubber gloves and boots when they're out working. Even well water is suspect at this time.
There are a couple of praises:
The student president of Centralia College organized a group of young people to come help out. That was awesome.
We've documented a lot of the houses in the area with water levels/damage reports. We made copies of those, sent one to FEMA, and kept one for us to have. We'll use that to organize Adopt-a-Family programs (for the kids who now won't get Christmas presents this year), along with other ways of helping.
Live from the EOC,
LCLC (Lewis County Local Contact)
(me)
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Dec. 8, 2007 Thus ends day 6
It has been not quite a week since the flood (Six days, and I did have to count on my fingers. You're lucky I know what day it is today!). So here's my report, since I'm the Lewis County Local Contact ( the LCLC).
The Curtis/Boistfort area still doesn't have water because the main water line was completely destroyed. Soon the roads will be cleared enough for workers to get in to put down new pipes, and the residents will get water. Until now, clean-up of houses is consisting of only shoveling out the mud. With no water, they can't wash anything.
I was just down at a local church sorting clothes. The pastor's wife described it as: "A garage sale on steroids." We gave out clothes and other items to the people who lost everything in the flood. The National Guard came with supplies for us to give out, and people from as far away as Olympia were driving down with new clothes they bought to donate.
One family that came to the church for clothes lost everything they had. They had to swim out of their house, which was in really deep water, and their little baby, Caroline, almost drowned. Caroline's mother lost her grip, and Caroline started floating down the river. Fortunately, her 6yo brother caught her in time. There were so many stories like that, so many tears.
Tomorrow I'll probably be going down to the shelter to help cook meals (and hopefully be able to go to church, too...).
Signing off for now,
LCLC (Lewis County Local Contact)
(me)
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Dec. 8, 2007 Announcement!
If you want to help Lewis County, Washington with the relief efforts from the flood of '07, here's the information you need. Fire Dist. 13's unofficial Public Information Officer (PIO) gave it to me to post on my unofficial update blog. :-)
We don't need any more clothes or food or anything like that. What the people in the rural areas need is money donations. The fire department is requesting that donations be sent to the Boistfort Valley Community Foundation. If you give it to the Red Cross, the people like Pete and Cindy Dykstra out here won't get any of it. So! All of this talk to say:
Make checks payable to Boistfort Valley Community Foundation and send to:
C/O Lewis County Fire Department
PO Box 16
Curtis, Wa 98538
The PIO wants to see this information everywhere, all over the country. I wonder if you all could post a little something on your blogs about the flood or refer people back to my blog. The people here will still need help for months to come.
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