The terrible flood and how lucky WE are.

We arrived home late yesterday afternoon, and everything here is fine.  John has taken good care of the house and raked all the new gravel on to the driveway; built a path to the solar hut using pavers Robert had purchased.He also used  some of the gravel.  He planted a couple of plants near the walk way and it looks lovely!

Our Salina house is probably fine as is Vernon's.  His shop got wet, but not too bad.  Our barn is probably history.  The Jersey barriers did not hold.  Of course, we haven't seen it yet and Vernon could not get to it because the road and creek are one and crossing is not possible at this time.

Some of our neighbors homes sustained terrible damage.  Two of them were hit by a horrendous mud slide.  A couple of people sustained major injuries from that slide.  Another home seemed to be well away from the creek, but their house was built on mine tailings, apparently.  In any case, first their car and then their out building went in the creek and the creek kept eating away until it was up to the house.  They escaped by climbing up the mountain to Pete Brady's place in Melvina...quite a climb with two little children.  You don't get to rescue much.

Most of the residents escaped by helicopter, but that of course meant a good hike up the mountain to where a helicopter could land.  Also people on the side of the creek the barn is on were helped across the creek by a high-line.  I suppose that is like a Zip line.  That would have been quite a ride! Again, that meant they couldn't take much with them and they still had a mountain to climb.

Marti and Pete did not leave.  They have power (Pete has solar and a cell phone), Marti has Xcel and Century Link.  I assume Marti has Internet, too.  I don't know what they'll do if the water doesn't go down such that road repairs can be made.  Also, I'm afraid Salina will not be at the top of the County Transportation Dept's number one priority!  I expect if we still lived up there and didn't know I had a heart problem, we'd have stayed, too.  I always have at least enough food stored to last us six weeks or so.  And assuming our solar panels were still ok, we'd have solar power, too.

The church is hanging, but didn't fall into the creek.  Most of it is still on land, but the front corner is not.

There is so much damage, Salina is really a disaster area big time.  I am very grateful we moved from there.  We have taken our house off the market, of course.  As people return and want to rebuild we shall rent it, if anyone should want to live there while the work is being done.