Rain and Rain and More Rain

Rain, rain, go away.

Come again some other day.

This youtube video is of Wilson Creek, the same creek that is pictured above in my heading. Big difference a few million drops of rain make. I've been wondering one thing. Who over-prayed for the end of this summer's drought? Enough already.

Floods and drought; Feast and famine. Taking the bad with the good. That's how life in the western North Carolina foothills goes. The dog days of summer didn't give us late afternoon humid subtropic rains this year. The grass withered and crunched beneath our footsteps. The creeks dried into trickles. The rivers shriveled so much that even the smallest power boats could no longer pass.

When the rains finally came, we were blessed beyond our needs to the tune of a foot in the last few days. The water from the Blue Ridge Mountains flows through our foothills on the way to the Atlantic, funneling into narrow streams that can't support it. So we get the brunt of it.

It's been this way forever.

The Army Corps of Engineers has been able to make some headway into stemming the disasters. I've had a little experience with them when the church I attend restored a chapel in our park and I was on the restoration committee. In order to acquire the correct permits, the engineers had to certify that the building site was in a safe location. I learned about hundred year flood classification, and five hundred year flood classification. They pointed out issues that I never considered, namely what we did on our property had a direct impact on every land downstream from us. What floated away in a five hundred year flood had to end up somewhere. Complain all we want, this flood plain designation meant salvation for someone in the future, maybe not this week, maybe not this century.

Courtney Chapel

In this picture of the chapel, notice it's located on a slight incline. That would be Army Corps of Engineers imprint. Because of their diligence, the two century old logs are not floating downstream today.

This would be a case of when government intervention works!

Catch of the day,

Gretchen