Flood

I'm sure you know about the flooding we experienced here this summer and fall. We still see the impact every time we leave the house. I blogged about it this summer, which was a good experience for me, and was very humbled by the number of people who "followed" our journey through it. (The beginning of The Water Log can be found here.)

In summary, the flood lasted (in general) for 4 months--June through September. It was, unquestionably, the deepest, longest lasting, and most destructive flood this area has ever seen. We fought alongside our neighbors to save anything that could be saved, some with success, some not. But we still have so very many things to be thankful for!

Rather than fill this page with me blathering on, I'll just post some photos, and if you want to read the story, you'll have to visit The Water Log.

(click on the photos to see them larger) Below each photo is its caption.

The top photo was taken at the beginning of June, just before flooding began. The bottom one is what we saw the rest of June thru September.

5 miles south of our house, looking west towards Big Lake. This is Hwy 159 and eventually had several hundred feet+ holes washed right through the highway.

One of our fields about 3 miles south of our house along Hwy P.

Just 1/4 mile south of our house, our ground on both sides of this road. A total loss to the left. (see next photo) Mostly lost to the right.

Same corn field as in previous photo. To the left of the road, all of the corn drowned.

Over at Big Lake (3 miles west of our house.) The devastation over there was massive.

Another home at Big Lake.

Standing at the intersection of Hwy 111 and 118, 2.7 miles west of our driveway, looking south towards Big Lake....

...and looking west towards the river, which is still about 2 miles from this point. This is also where they believe State Trooper Fred Guthrie drowned.

Start to head to our house from that intersection, and this is pretty much all you see, on either side of the road. Water is approximately 4-6 feet deep (the highway is built up.)

Still on the highway home. At its highest time, the water actually ran across this highway in several places.

Our field and pivot about 1.5 miles west of our house...

 

...and on that field, our pivot flipped over.

If you continue down the highway, past our house and on the other side of Bigelow, there was flooding on that side of us, too.

1 mile east of our house. This sign kills me....Road Closed? Seriously? I would have never guessed....

This is a photo taken from an airplane of our home place. The highway in front of our house (the highest point) runs from the top to (almost) the bottom. Our elevator is just above center. The backwards C shape is the dike Dustin pushed up around our place. You can see how close the flooding was to us at the top of the photo. This is less than 1 mile away. The Little Tarkio Creek Levee protected us...AND GOD!!  No joke--4 months is an insanely long time for a DIRT levee full of badger holes to withstand water!