Flooding 5/05/17

My what a week we have had!  Our home town was in the national news again due to record flooding.  Our last flood was just 14 months ago, Dec 2015.  Because of the flooding we have been homebound as all major roads in and out of our area are closed due to water on the roads.
In 2015 we only had about 24 hours notice before the flood and while many, including my husband and I tried to sand bag the local businesses there just wasn't enough time or supplies.  So there was massive damage done to our local home town.  It took approximately 6 months for the business to reopen.

This time around we had 72 hours to prepare for the oncoming water.  The town learned quite a bit from the last flood and the effort to save the town was better coordinated, bettered supplied with supplies and there was a massive about of volunteerism.

This time around sandbagging wall was increased and surrounded the entire premise of the building.  

On Tuesday the waters began to rise and this was what our local high school looked like.  the sports fields and building were covered.  

ON Wednesday people were still in town desperately working to protect our historic district.  In 2015 my husband and I helped with the sandbagging but we were unable to do that this year (due to health issues), so instead we bought supplies to help the ones who could do the hard work.  The local Elks lodge was collecting food, drinks, and other needed supplies. IN addition they had volunteers cooking food around the clock.

This year we had bobcat to help move sand bags, and even the coast guard showed up to help construct the sand bag walls.

This is the picture before the river crested and it was expected to be as high as the last flood in 2015

Thursday morning at about 10 am and the sandbag wall held strong and only a small amount of water got into just a few of the business.  The damage was minimal this time.

However on Thursday a call was put out for even more volunteers to help with the sump pumps and to relieve some of the volunteers who worked tirelessly over night.  My husband and I went down town and did a two hours shift working on the water pumps.

It was cold and still raining.  My husband ran the pump up on the sandbag wall where as I spent most of the time huddled under a building overhead and was available to run to get more fuel, or drinks as needed.

It is expected that the water will recede by Friday and then the clean up begins.  While volunteering we heard stories of people coming as far away as Milwaukee, Kansas city, and Ohio to help with the flooding.   So amazing to see how everyone pulled together.  While we were able to save the historic district there were still many other businesses, and families who were not quite so lucky as the flood waters enters their properties.

The flood this time around was half an inch higher than the flood of 2015 which is a new record. 

We were not able to attend our coop this week or even go to our last Brain Discovery class due to all major road closures.  We were able to get a few school things done but it was a mild week due to needing to do other things, like volunteer to help with the flooding.