Rooney Driving Down What Used to be a Road
Just wanted to stop in and say hello from Oklahoma. What an eventful week it has been for me and my family. It’s kind of a blur but I will try to recap as best as I can. As the rain started coming down heavily this past Sunday, I spent my day clearing driveway culverts up and down the street to keep the water moving. Our pool also had to be pumped down a couple times on Sunday. We were getting BUCKETS of rain. Our backyard was filling up quickly and by the end of the day, water was flowing over the street. Throughout the night as I tried to sleep, the rain kept coming. I was definitely nervous about whether the town’s inferior water management could handle all this rain water. As I left for work the next morning, things seemed to be maintaining levels around our house. On Monday morning, the rain just kept pouring down. I went home to check on things around 1pm and the water was rising again. There was just no place for it to go. When I was home, I changed clothes, got some knee high rubber boots on and my rain coat. I knew I would need them soon. I went back to the office and instructed my employees to start putting computers and paperwork up as high as they could get them and prepare to leave the office. At that point, I got a call from my wife saying she had come home from work with the kids and couldn’t get to the house. I told everyone at work to shut down and go home. I left hastily and when I got to the house, I found a literal river running across my front yard. I could not even see the driveway. As I pulled in, my wife was trying to bring the kids to the house, Connor in arm and hanging onto Aidan’s hand as he kept falling down from the rushing water. As the boys and I moved some items to a higher level in the house, the wife took the dogs out to the vehicles. I carried the boys to my truck and hooked up the boat. The wife was helping the neighbor girl (home alone) gather up her cats and puppy. As traffic was piling up trying to go north up the mountain, I decided we were going to risk going down river in order to get away from the traffic. It worked out just fine. We found the neighbor girl’s parents and dropped her off and then headed to a friend’s house on the mountain. The rain had stopped and I was getting messages from friends saying the water had receded. We ended up going home that night and found very little damage. Only some wet boxes in the lower level of the house.
Of course, all this time, in the back of my mind, I was thinking how all this water was filling up the sloughs and ponds in the area. It has been so dry around here that it made for a difficult waterfowl season in 2010. Even though it’s early, I hope the precipitation is steady enough throughout this summer to maintain the water levels needed to sustain good habitat and food supply for the local and migratory birds.
Things are Runing a Little Wild at The Dam
I finally got a chance to go look around today. Went to the dam and the water is 3 ft from the top. They have all 10 gates open right now. Called the Corp of Engineers today and they expect the water level to rise another 2 – 3 ft in the next couple days. This will cause the low lying areas to the east of us to continue to flood. I pray that it does not affect too many people in the area although I think it will. For now, we’re doing well and thanks for reading.
Rooney