It wasn’t so many hours ago that I’d told some friends of mine that I was off to get an Eggnog Latte and go out for a ride to see the big November storm. Well, an awful lot has happened since then.
After my wife and I got our lattes, we went down to see the river on the south side of Monroe. It was awesome. I’d just been down to see it a few hours earlier and since then, it was way up. Partially out of its banks, moving fast and carrying huge trees and debris of all kinds. Amazing.
We drove south then towards Duvall and many of the fields on either side were lakes. When we came back, we took a smaller road on the south side of the Tualco Valley and, after we turned north and crossed the bridge over the river near the old prison farm, we came to a place where a brand new branch of the river was sweeping over the road. The car before us had just made it through so I went for it. But about halfway across, I realized that while we were probably going to make it, it was going to be a lot closer issue than I’d imagined when I’d brashly started. I could feel the water dragging hard on our wheels trying to sweep my truck off the side of the road. Once we were across, I decided we weren’t going back that way unless we had no choice.
We got back on the main road, Highway 203, and drove back into Monroe and then went east out of town on Highway 2 towards Sultan. Along this road, a friend of ours, Bob Wolf, owns a business called Monroe Water Gardens and collects animals of all kinds. We were wondering what was happening at his place. Three or four years ago, in a previous flood, he’d lost many animals when the river had come up and they couldn’t move them in time.
When his place came into view, it was obvious he was having major flooding problems again. This storm, its strength and the subsequent flood warnings had come up this time very quickly and the entire nursery portion of his business was underwater and the various demonstration ponds and waterfall displays had vanished beneath the encroaching river. We could see, also, that traffic was stopped on the highway ahead and that people were turning around just beyond where you turned into his driveway on the right. It looked like there was an accident ahead or the authorities were closing Highway 2 east of his place.
We looked at his parking lot and it was full of vehicles and trailers all parked helter skelter and we realized they must all be trying to move the animals again. We pulled in to see if we could help.
The first thing we saw was Bob, a big Marlborough Man cowboy type, obviously injured, in the midst of a crowd of people. His leg was lame and hurt and he had several serious abrasions on the side of his face and he was definitely in pain and struggling to think clearly as he was asking various folks to do one thing and another to move animals. It was a wild scene. I recognized a few of the people but most of them were new to me. Some were trying to load horses, others were discussing loading the cattle. Bob asked us to go into a large greenhouse and see if we could arrange things so that the birds in cages at floor level could be placed up higher somehow so they wouldn’t drown if the water continued to rise.
We went in and worked on this for awhile and then someone came with a trailer that we could put many of the small bird cages in. So, we moved them out into the trailer and then made sure that all the other cages were either raised up or were tall cages with cross bars high up so the birds could remain above the water. Of course, no one knew how high the water might get.
I went outside to have a look around at what else was going on. Bob’s place sits to the south side of the highway and running parallel to the highway is a train track up on a high berm which cuts through his place and divides it into two major portions; the strip which is between the road and the tracks and the part on the other side between the tracks and the river, which is a fair ways off, usually. His nursery business, his pond displays, his office and his parking lot are all in the strip by the highway. But, if you drive up and over the railroad berm, you can see the various greenhouses and animal enclosures in the back side as well.
I walked to the top of the berm and looked out and everything all the way to the river’s normal location was underwater and the water was moving swiftly from left to right. At this point, Bob and Mike were down in the water, which was chest and armpit high, working among the bird enclosures cutting them open and trying to free the remaining birds to prevent them from drowning.
It was all they could do to stand against the current so there was no question of capturing and bringing the birds out. Releasing them was the only option.
I decided to give Sharon all my electronics and perishables (PDA, cell phone, short range radio, wallet and etc.) and go in and help. And while we were making the exchange, one of the folks that works for Bob, David Burgdorf, mentioned that there were several large birds still trapped in enclosures on the nursery side and that the water there was also rising – so he and I went to try to rescue them instead.
It was easier work in the strip than where Bob was working because there wasn’t much current since the area between the highway and the railway berm acts as a holding pond when the river floods. The water comes into the area through large culverts under the railway berm. But, never-the-less the water was cold and the footing was unpredictable at best. There were four large birds, Swans, I think, in two large enclosures. When these two enclosures, which were each probably 40 feet on a side, weren’t underwater, they had ponds of their own in their middle sections.
We took two nets with us and waded in. As we got closer to the enclosures, the water got higher and as we entered them, it was probably at mid-chest level (and did I mention cold?). David went in first and grabbed a Swan right off. He made it look easy and he carried it off to where a trailer had been backed up to the edge of the water. I stayed behind and went in pursuit of the second Swan. Well, it had seen what happens to the unwary and trusting Swan and it wasn’t having any of me. I slogged after it discovering that some parts, where the original pond had been, were much deeper than others and also finding a lot of odd and unpredictable objects under the water to stumble over. After several minutes of pursuit, I decided to go to the other enclosure and try my luck there. It was about the same.
David came back and he grabbed one the nets we’d brought. It’s a circular net about 2 feet in diameter on the end of a 8 foot or so aluminum pole. And, he just went over and plunked it over the solo bird and boop, that was done.
Much encouraged, I took a net and waded in and before long, I had a bird of my own. These birds are big and someone said they can be quite nasty to grapple with but it wasn’t so. Once you grabbed them around the neck (gently) and wrapped your arm around their body, you pretty much had them and there wasn’t much struggle at all. David came back and I handed my bird off to him and went back and caught the last one and carried it out to the trailer myself.
At this point, several of us went back up on the berm and looked down on the bird enclosures on the river side. There were a few birds still trapped but it was 4:30 PM now and getting dusky and the water was definitely higher now than when Bob had been in earlier. Bob stands 6’4″ or so and he’d been having trouble then. I’m only 5’11”. I came to the conclusion that it was too risky to try it.
David told me then that there were three big geese that had been put into the office earlier and we should move them to trailer with the others. So, we went in and grabbed them. They acted pretty fierce squatting down and hissing like your death was near but once you grabbed them, they were the same pussycat birds as the others.
Out again in the parking lot. The cattle were gone and all the horses too, but one, and he was resisting being led into a trailer. People were beginning to get into the end game. Most of what could be done was done and it was dusk and most of us were cold and wet. And the water was still rising and it was still raining.
Sharon came and told me that we were going to take Bob to the hospital. He was in a far worse way than I’d realized earlier. He’d had his leg and face injured hours before when he was dragged by Zebras through the water and had stumbled on an unseen something under the water. Since then, he’d been in the river hour after hour rescuing animals and equipment and getting more and more hypothermic and weak from not eating or drinking anything all day. Now, as they half carried and half walked him over to my truck, I could see his leg was giving him a lot of pain and that he was seriously cold and talking slowly. They partially undressed him and wrapped him in dry horse blankets and we took off with him shivering deeply and Sharon hugging him as best she could.
At Valley General, his temperature was 96 degrees so they wrapped him up good in heated blankets to warm him. While this was going on, I ran home and back in 30 minutes during which time, I jumped into and out of the shower, put on dry clothes and grabbed my cell phone.
When I returned, they’d taken X-rays of his right knee to see what the damages were. Apparently, he’d twisted it badly but nothing was broken and after an hour or so, his temperature came back up to 98.6 or whatever the norm is and they said he could be discharged into his friend, Drew’s, care. Drew (still very wet from the river) arrived about this time. Since we’d left the nursery, he’d been transporting animals and feed to the fair grounds where people were looking after hundreds of not thousands of animals displaced up and down the Sky Valley by the flooding. Then he’d had to run some of the people who’d helped at the nursery home and then, finally, he caught up with us.
We got Bob a prescription at the pharmacy and loaded him into Drew’s truck and Sharon and I went home.
After a beer and after looking at more weather reports – which say that the rain is continuing and that the Skykomish River by Bob’s place will crest tonight at over four feet above the previous all time record – I thought I’d come up and write this little story. I’m still thinking about all of it and especially about the fact that Bob told me that he didn’t know most of the folks who’d showed up to help when the water started rising – they’d just appeared with trucks and trailers. It’s a good thought to hang onto tonight as I ease back into the cynicism of Election Day 2006.
Very powerful story, Dennis. I was glad to read that you’re high and dry. Even so, it’s a awake up call to see how close we live to the edge sometimes.