Fragments From Floyd

The rain pounding on the metal roof and the roar of the creek woke me first at 11:30 last night. From then on, I slept fitfully; the rain never let up. It rained hard when I got up at my usual 4:30 and before I finished my first cup of coffee, the lights were going off--coming back on. At least the power came back on long enough to check email, print some essential work for the day, and even post an abbreviated blog entry.

But the tension-anxiety inside, you could cut with a knife--Ann's, primarily; mine, on her behalf. Getting her to work was going to mean some gut-wrenching choices of go or no-go; if go, which direction (choose your flood of choice) and when. She shortly thereafter informed me she would plan to leave by 5:00, getting out, perhaps, ahead of the rising waters of our usually-placid step-acrossable creek. And since Ann is reverse-gear-impaired, I offered to go scout the road between the house and the hardtop. A half cup of coffee sat cooling by the computer as I doned my rubber boots, rain parka and grabbed the flashlight and keys.

"I'm going up the high side" I told her as I walked out into the sideways silver rain racing through the narrow beam of the outside floodlights. Floodlights. Indeed.

Before I got in the Subaru, I shined the light over into the creekbed and saw that the 2 x 12 plank we used for a footbridge had been swept away more than a foot of rising water ago. There would be no exit, then, going upstream. Both low-water bridges would already be under water. I took the downstream route along the road, which already was an auxillary creek since water coming over the concrete bridges has just as soon follow the depression of the roadbed as the full creekbanks.

The highest we've ever seen Goose Creek was up to the edge of the road at our nearest neighbors. And that's where it was when I drove past in the very-dark this morning. Just beyond, still water was pooled in a fifty-foot wide depression along the road that was deeper than I wanted to drive through. I took my time, got past, only to discover another and another similar pond where I had never seen water rise before.

After one of the two miles to the hardtop, it was obvious and imperative that I must turn around immediately in the next place to do so. I'm sorry I probably woke the neighbors pulling into their driveway. Their dog barked when I killed the engine in my haste. By the time I got back to our closest neighbors, water was washing OVER the road, and the samewas true in a half-dozen other places between my front bumper and the safety of the house.

In no more than four minutes, the water had gone up a foot. Replaying in my mind was the robotic voice of NOAA Weather Radio's electronic text reader who I'd just heard repeating the little flashflood poem: Turn Around. Don't Drown. But the only way to go was through. So THIS is what a flash-flood looks like, I thought to myself in an out-of-body calm.

When I reached the house (and those reassuring floodlights on high ground) I pulled the car, then the truck up the driveway and away from the road--now also the creek--not knowing how high the frothing, muddy water might come as more bands of blowing rain come through. We were told to expect heavy rain throughout the morning yet. The house is ten feet higher than the creek, so we are in no danger from the water here. A couple of neighbors are probably very nervous about now, however, and it's conceivable the water could reach our barn floor (and all our mowers and such).

The sound of the water, as we stand together on the front porch in the darkness is hostile and menacing. Our little brook. What's gotten into you? And of course it is this very scouring by rushing water that has carved our valley pasture and made these branching hollows over the ages. Nothing personal, even though we give these wet cells of air names and tend to demonize them if they do us harm; or even if they inconvenience or discomfit us.

This may be a tale told in installments as the power comes and goes. Or perhaps this is the most dramatic middle part and by noon the sun will be shining as the waters subside and Ann drives slowly through the ponds that remain across the road, determined that "neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night (nor high waters of Goose Creek or the Roanoke River) stays these (pharmacists) from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

And I'll keep the light on for you, dear.