Texas (Alabama) Flood

Well, I think our drought is over. We are now in the midst of widespread flooding. I know I've not lived in this area very long but I've never seen the water anywhere near this high before. This is next to my drive, down near the road. You can very vaguely see my truck in the upper, left hand corner. The water is almost up to the drive. Well, in fact, during the night it did cross the drive because there was leaves and stuff stuck about a foot up on my gate.

This is normally 2 distinctly separate creeks. You can't really tell but the water is rushing at a torrential rate.

Three wet weather creeks popped up around the house. I knew when I got up this morning and heard rushing water that something was wrong. I looked out the window and saw water all around the house. Of course, my house is way too high up to be in danger but a little water was getting in my basement. I decided to stay home because we don't have a lot of dry area to work in right now and figured there would probably not be much going on. I'm glad I stayed home because it got much worse later in the afternoon. I ran a couple of errands in town about lunch time and when I got back I got to looking at stuff. It pissed me off that the water was running around the house like that. Now, most of the wetness in the basement is my own fault because I have just never taken the time to waterproof and back fill certain areas. I kept putting it off because there have just been more pressing things to do and getting a little water in the basement is actually not that big a deal because it is not completely sealed up yet. But still. So, I got a pick and shovel and the wheelbarrow and went to work. Fortunately, I had a good stack of concrete block also. I worked for several hours in the pouring rain. I had to get the water diverted away from the house. My brothers at work would be disappointed in me if I let this little bit of water whip me. Fortunately also, it has been rather warm lately so I didn't really get cold until the sun started to go down. But I had won; at least for now. The great thing about rushing water is that once you start it in a new direction, it starts digging it's own path. You just have to help it out a little bit.

I thought several times during the ordeal, usually after I had just sprayed mud in my face, why in the hell did I build here? But, this is the land I was provided with so you use what you've got, you know. There would just be other problems if I had built somewhere else. The culvert closest to the house could not handle the amount of water going through from the creek that formed in the very bottom of the valley, so the water started flowing across the drive. It washed a couple of trenches in the gravel but nothing too bad. There is a lot of stone and sand in that driveway so I think it will be OK. As soon as it dries out around here I'm going to see if I can borrow a machine from the company and do some serious landscaping just uphill of these creeks. I need to dig a new slew to shoot the water out across the front yard. It shouldn't be too much trouble with a backhoe.

The road right next to the driveway did not fair so well. It has started to fail and collapse. The county just let a bunch of very heavy debris pile up in front of the culverts, which are like 4 feet in diameter each, and the creek started clogging it up. Allen has been going down to the county for the past 4 weeks, telling them this was going to happen but they just ignored him, I guess. We noticed this morning that the ground was starting to fall away from the road and a large hole open up, so he went back down there. This time they sent someone out to look and within 30 minutes they had a crew out here pulling the debris out. They cleared the openings but the dirt continues to fall away from under the road. I walked down and talked to the guys and they said just as soon as the rain let up they would have to just rework the whole bridge. I hope they do and don't put it off again. The guy I talked to seems quite aggravated that they had not been told this was happening. But we tried. He told me the name of who to call directly the next time we had a problem.

So, if I don't get washed away I'll be back soon, hopefully to post on further progress of the house.

Edit to add: You cannot see now but there are 2 long telephone poles and a couple of sections of tree trunks down there. When the county came and cut the trees back they just let the limbs and trunks fall into the creek against the culverts. It required a backhoe and blocking the road to clear these objects.

*with apologies to Stevie Ray Vaughan