High and Dry and Probably Stranded

Yesterday this was a green valley filled with farms. Today, it's a muddy torrent a mile across thanks to days of heavy rains.

Living on a mountain, I thought the last thing I'd have to worry about is a flood. This afternoon, I was proven wrong as the last of the roads across the valley vanished underwater. This wasn't any problem for me, since the road along the valley to my house rides up the hillside, so it's safe from any flood of less than Noachian levels, but when the way to the towns on the east side of the valley were cut off, that left a small army of stranded commuters who decided that the way to handle the situation was to park their cars in the crossroads, which blocked my way home as effectively as the flood itself.

Fortunately, it was early in the afternoon, so I was able to pick my way through by finesse, guile and threats, but my wife, who came home a couple of hours later, was caught up in a horrendous tailback and I had to look for back roads on the computer and then personally scout up and down the valley road so I could warn my wife which ones were flooded out and which ones were't jammed with traffic-- not easy when it's so backed up that even as I write this I can see the collected headlamps on the road to Monroe glowing against the clouds to the North.

We finally all managed to get home in various states of frustration and sogginess, but then I realised that though we were high and relatively dry, our house was at the end of a cul de sac with the only exit down in the valley-- and that's where the power and telephone lines ran from as well. Worse, even though our water came from a local well that was absolutely safe from contamination, all it would take is one bureaucrat with a vague memory of something called e coli and I'd be rigging plastic tarps over the lawn to catch enough rain for a pot of tea. So I've been having a jolly time filling up jugs and the upstairs bath while muttering to myself that we have got to budget for that emergency water drum. Also that I can't put off replenishing our stock of propane and batteries any longer.

Long story short, tomorrow should be very interesting. Either I'll be sitting here in a nice warm house typing away at the computer until it's time to pick up my daughter from school, or a convergence of flood waters, traffic snarls and power outages will see yours truly hiking through the woods to the main road and then hitching twenty miles for supplies before it gets too dark.

At least I'll be able to pass the time indulging in nature studies. The waters have chased all the animals and birds out of the valley and into the hills, so it's a bit like a David Attenborough documentary here. On the whole, though, I think I much preferred it when I used to ride out floods on my boat. At least then an overabundance of water merely meant that it was easier to get out to sea.