More Flash Flood news

Yesterday we had more flooding in the area, but the good news is all the trenching and other mitigation efforts kept the floodwaters off of our land. Here are a couple of shots I got of the new 'river':

This is looking from our yard to the property next door as the water flows down from the street above through the neighbor's property, then turns south toward their road. The house that is sandbagged is on the lot further to the east of the trenched lot, and they didn't want any trenching done on their land...

The morning after

This is the scene that greeted me this morning:

I'm going to take this as a sign of hope, while preparing for the probability of still more flooding to come...

Flash Flooding!

We got hit with extensive flooding in our area yesterday... runoff from rain that hit the peaks where we had the fire last month. We now have a river running through the lower corner of our property:

This shot is looking at the flow from our next door neighbor's yard. The water and debris took down the fence, and pretty much ignored the sand bags and straw wattles we had positioned to divert the flow away from the garage.

This shot is looking from our back deck at the flow across our property, with neighboring properties in the background. The two properties in the background were heavily flooded, and the property to our east had flooding across their horse pasture.

At one point, we got in our Jeep and drove out to the highway, which was a little dicey at spots. We live on dirt roads unmaintained by the county, and at the end of the road where we turn towards the highway, the runoff coming down from the mountain was very strong. Once on the highway, we discovered all vehicles had been stopped in both directions due to water overflowing from the side ditches. We stayed out there for about 30 minutes waiting for the runoff to subside, then I ended up hiking back to our house while my hubby went back to get the Jeep. Needless to say, I was pretty muddy by the time I got home! No, didn't get pictures of that! But stay tuned... we are in for more of the same for at least the next 45 days, and I'm sure to get more pictures. Sadly, a 12 year old girl from the area lost her life because she went out to see the runoff and fell in and was swept away. I don't think a lot of people were as prepared for the seriousness of this situation as they could have been, and I don't even know if we are as prepared as we should be! I have a 'Go Bag' packed now in case, but don't know where we could go to be safer than we are right here! Our biggest danger is being cut off from the highway if the roads are impassable. We have 4-wheel drive, but it's an older vehicle and I'm not sure it would do too well on really degraded roads. Guess we'll find out!

Upcoming experiments/storm update

Yesterday, my friend Joyce and I visited 5 fabric shops in the area, and my quest was to find black and white or white on white fabrics. I plan to experiment with overdyeing them. Believe me, with all the colorful fabrics in these shops, it was a struggle to stick to my guns, but I ended up finding a good selection to play with:

Unfortunately, you can't really see the designs on the white fabric too well... the one on the left has butterflies, the one on the right looks like egyptian hieroglyphics, and the rolled one on the right has sort of lozenge shapes. The square on the upper right makes me want to color with fabric markers or sharpies! I can't wait to play with these, and will post the results when I have some.
Did I mention that this little adventure was a 'Shop Hop'? I have no idea if this happens anywhere else, but once a year these shops put this event together, and if you buy a 'Passport' and present it to the clerk when you are making your purchase, you get a discount on your purchase, they stamp your 'passport', give you a charm pack of fabric squares, and you get a chance to win a prize if you visit all the shops. Well, we won't be eligible for the drawing, but we got the discounts and charm packs, and Joyce donated hers to me because she doesn't make anything with such small pieces of fabric, so I have those to play with too!
Meanwhile, by the time I got home, I discovered we had our first flood while I was away, but it wasn't bad! Floodwaters crossed over a corner of our property that was closest to our garage, but flowed away from it. A friend loaded up her truck at the sandbag station and brought it over, so we have started a barrier to prevent any further migration towards the garage, should the flow continue in this area:

My hubby and I took a tour of the properties uphill from ours, and they got hit bad up there. One home had floodwaters come inside. Our neighbors to the left of this picture had quite a bit of flooding in their yard, but had sandbagged in front of their home, so hopefully didn't suffer any damage inside. One street over apparently got hit really bad, and our neighbors to the north had a lot of water washing over the road, but again had sandbagged well enough to keep the flow out of their yards. This is going to be a really interesting Monsoon season for sure!

Aftermath of the Schultz Fire

We recently had a large fire sweep across the east side of the San Francisco Peaks here in Flagstaff, causing many of us who live in the area to evacuate our homes. Fortunately, we had a top notch group of firefighters, forest service, hot shots, etc., who worked tirelessly to contain the fire, and there were no lives or structures lost. But now we are having to prepare for the almost certainty that we will be having flash flooding in the area for at least the next 5 years as the vegetation begins to come back, and the soil is restored. Currently, we have large helicopters dumping large loads of mulch material to help absorb rain, but in the meantime, the ever-present winds are causing a lot of dust swirling along the mountain side. I captured several shots of one in progress this afternoon, and it's really quite a sight:

On hindsight, I should have grabbed the video camera, but my first impulse is always the digital for stills. This is about as close as I want to get to anything that resembles a tornado!

Meanwhile, I dug a shallow trench yesterday across the yard in front of our house, and today a friend came with his truck to pick up straw wattles for us, then pounded the stakes thru them to anchor them in case we get sheet flooding in our yard. This will help keep the waters from flooding under the house, or seeping into the patio room:

I still have about 5 left to go along the side of the garage, then maybe I will get some sandbags for the front of the property... we get lots of water flow across the road to our house, which is unpaved and currently full of ruts from the winter snowmelt. If the water flow gets deep, it could run onto the property from the road, but I think the biggest problem has been dealt with. Such a fun summer we are having!