What An Interesting Day!

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Yesterday, Friday, was a pretty normal Friday. SWMBO and I went out to Family Pancake House for brunch. I had the Halibut burger and it was pretty good. Then we went to Costco and bought $230 bucks of stuff! Actually, a large part of that was a heating blanket and a set of sheets for the new bed. (Damn Sheets Are Expensive!!) That was probably half of what we spent. The rest was for stuff to feed "The Mouth" living out back! (:grin: Just Kidding!) The rest of the evening was spent as usual. Except…

One of the sisters called me and said that a bunch of folks from church were getting together Saturday morning (@ 0530!) to drive down to Chehalis, WA and help folks that were flooded out. At first I said NO; but got to feeling kind of guilty about it as we came through the storm fairly well off. So I called her back and said I’d be there. Then I spent the rest of the night getting stuff together to take. Both my shovels, rake, water, sammiches and snacks, hammer, ladder, pry bar. All the usual stuff. Then I took my sleepies (Great Night Sleep herbal sleep aid) and crashed around 2200.

Got to the Gig Harbor Stake Center at 0515 and, of course, I was the only one there. Luckily by 0550 or so another 12 people showed up. We had a nice little caravan down to Chehalis. Met at the Stake Center there, was issued bright yellow shirts, given our area and turned loose. When we got to our assigned area, the guy that was "in charge" had us help a couple of folks move the gravel in their yards around; which I thought was not what we were there for. I’m thinking we need to help the people that have quality of life issues. So I learned where folks might REALLY need help and took off. I saw a lady with a bunch of stuff piled up next to her porch (where the city won’t pick it up!) so I stopped. By the time I got out of my truck the other guys stopped behind me. I asked the lady if me and some friends of mine could move all that stuff out to the curb for her and she almost started crying. So we moved the stuff out to the curb. Went fairly quickly with 10 of us doing the work!

Around the corner from this place was a whole street of houses that had been flooded. We started at the first home ripping out carpet and piling it outside and moving soaked furniture and stuff outside and worked our way down the street. Lots of shoveling mud! Lots of furniture moving out. Lots of work. Almost everyone was really appreciative and emotional about 12-20 strangers stopping to help them with whatever needed to be done and not asking to be paid. Cool!

The first folks (old folks) we helped around the corner told us about standing chest deep in water and being picked up by a helicopter. The lady said "Yeah, I climbed into the basket and it kept going up and down and up and down and dipping back into the water and the wind was blowing and it was raining like crazy and that SOB made me put out my cigarette before he’d let me in his helicopter!"

My throat got really raw and I was soaked to the skin by 1300 so I called it quits and drove the hour+ back to the house. Got home, restarted a fire to warm the place up, stripped the wet muddy clothes off and climbed into a shower. ’Bout a half hour later I was starting to feel warm! Layed down on our new bed until SWMBO got home from the genealogy library. She’s making dinner tonight. Making me some fish! Cool!

It was a hassle; going to bed early (and missing Dogfights), getting up early and driving an hour+ before zero dark thirty, shoveling mud and lifting soaked furniture and stuff; but it was kind of nice. You see a house with water marks just above the bottom of its windows and you know you need to stop and help.


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Finally Got Out To The Property…

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But had to take the long "back" way to do it. Even had to go about 4 miles on a slippery wet dirt road. Got to the property and could not believe the amount of damage running water has done to the road and the dome hole! I am going to have to redo almost everything I’ve done to date. Damn! Took a lot of pictures of the property and the washed out Tahuya River Bridge and they are posted on my gallery site (link at right then under "Property Pictures"). There are washouts and "Runnel’s?" down the whole length of the road. The two catch basins I had to put in are full of mud. I mean FULL of mud. One you can hardly tell there was a hole there before the storm. Major water is still running out of the dome hole. I’m going to have to figure out and install a completely new drainage system with lots of gravel to try and direct the water to where it won’t do any harm. Hmmm…

Then I had to take the same way back that I went in on. Was kind of a nice drive really. Got home just in time to help the Plumber dig up the drainage pipe for our toilet so he could run a snake through it. The pipe was blocked by roots. Thank Goodness! If it had been blocked by something WE did we would have had to pay the $300 the job cost. But since it was blocked by roots the landlord was responsible for it. Phew!

Our new "Sleep Number" bed came by delivery today also. So after the Plumber left I got to drain and mostly disassemble our waterbed and install the Sleep Number bed into the frame. Only took a couple of hours. :grin: Hope it helps me get a better nights sleep! I’ve been sleeping on a waterbed for the last 30 years (or so) and this is really going to be different for me. I doubt it can be any worse than sleeping in the sand or on a concrete floor like we did in Desert Shield/Storm. :-P

Smallville was a rerun. Again!


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11.6 Inches Of Rain In 24 Hours!

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11.6! Damn! Beat anything we had as far back as 1996 when we had that big ice storm. I have never seen it rain so much around here. I wanted to go out to the property today to check for damages but most of the roads are closed between here and there. The Tahuya River Bridge has washed out so I’d have to take the LONG way around through Tahuya anyway. (Damn. It is raining like crazy out there right now!)

sinkhole

Yesterday was a trip. Power went off at 0800. Came back on around 1000. Back off again around 1200. On again at 1500 or so. Off again at 2030. On again at 2110. Brownouts bad enough to shut my computer down between times of power or not. And of course I can’t get that damned generator started again. Damn!

Today a friend that lives about 30 minutes away called and asked if I could come over and fix the tarp they put over their roof to slow the leaks down. (They’re older than I and just barely ’making’ it. As a lot of us are…) The tarps blew off in the wind yesterday. So SWMBO and I gathered some tools together and went over. Wasn’t really too bad on their roof except for the SLIPPERY WET MOSS that covered most of the roof! Did what I could, got soaking wet and came on home. Got into something warm and dry immediately.


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Wow! What A Weather Day!

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Started out with 6.5 inches of rain in our area from midnight to 0800. Wow! Winds knocked out the power at 0800 (my UPS woke me up beeping) and it was out for a couple of hours. Came back on for about an hour then went out again for 4 hours or so. Back on now but it’s still windy out there so there’s no telling how long it will stay on. Heavy rain has this whole tri-state area on flood watch. There’s been mudslides and a sink hole opened up somewhere in the area.

goldgardensroadwashedout400_1344-t240

Gov. Chris Gregoire declared a statewide emergency Monday after strong winds and heavy rains lashed Western Washington, causing record flooding, mudslides and power outages across the region. (NWCN)

Not sure if I like hearing the wind whistle around this house. I think the wind coming from all directions is the reason we have a water leak from one of the overhead lamps in the living room. Called our Landlord about it and he came down and crawled into the overhead to check it out. Small leak from the roof. He put a bucket under it as a stopgap. (Uh oh, lights are flickering again…) That is one nice thing about renting; you can always call the Landlord for problems.:-P (Still wish we were living in our dome though…) Now we just have to remember NOT to turn on those lights until they dry out!

Had the generator running so I could watch the news this morning. Power came back on so I turned it off. Power went out again and I got tired of sitting in the silence after a couple of hours so I went out to restart the generator. Wouldn’t restart. Damn! Switch to “on”. Plenty of oil. Full of gas. Generator tank full of gas too. I get a little red light flashing when I pull on the starter cord. Hmmm. Sometimes wish I knew a bit more about engines. Damned thing won’t start even spraying a (small!) amount of starter fluid in the air intake. Usually that starts it right up.

Think I’ll make taco’s for dinner. I’ll log in and add anything later if I can and if there’s anything new.


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