The power of Mother nature

I know I just said in my last post that I rarely do "non bus" blog entries but circumstances dictate that I do because circumstances dictated that this is all that has happened to me for the past 5 days. We have had an abnormally cool spring, and wet. Lots of rain on and off, but last week we had the perfect storm. Over the winter we had lots of snow so the snow pack in the mountains was substantial. The cool spring meant the snow pack remained. Then last week starting Tuesday, it started to rain. Wednesday it picked up into SIGNIFICANT amounts of rain. Usually we receive about 320mm of rain annually. Last week we received upwards of 250mm in less than 24 hours. On top of that the rain was pushed up to high elevations reaching the snow pack in the high mountains. I think you can see where this is going. The high rain, causes melting of the snow and whammo! we have flash flood like conditions.

Next thing you know the kids and I are trapped on one side of the river and Michelle is stuck at the house on the other side, and the authorities are not letting anyone cross.

Our house was fine, we are not along the river but on higher ground..... plenty of our community members were not so lucky.

A kenworth picker truck, tossed around and hanging onto the river bank

In this pic, everything to the left of my finger was former Terra firma, with houses in the mix

Closer look you can see what was left of a house, it's unknown where the actual house is but the foundation was broken up and tipped over.
Perhaps this was the actual house...
THE POWER OF MOTHER NATURE

 After a few days of seeking refuge in the city we were able to get back home. The rest of the time has been spent volunteering to help those who lost so much in the flood. Needless to say next to nothing was done to Fillmore, except the occational looking in to make sure he wasn't getting leaked on.