The Pioneer Woman is another site I visit every day. One of my friends put me onto it, saying that she’d be forever indebted to Ree Drummond for some of her mouthwatering recipes. I love the photography section, though, and Pioneer Woman has a weekly photography challenge also. As with the Digital Photography School assignments, I do a personal challenge although I’m not ready to participate in the submissions. This week, The Pioneer Woman’s challenge is water. Maybe I’ll try some photos of water, but maybe not. The flood seems to be a never-ending story here and water remains a bit of a sore subject. I have some images of the flood as it was heading my way, although I was never able emotionally to take a picture of the water after it had engulfed us. When I took these pictures, I was still privately (and foolishly) living in hopes that the water might not get into my building since the floor of my store is about 3 feet above ground level. The images below are not particularly good ones because the sun was still high and, to be honest, I just didn’t have the presence of mind (or the time) to worry about camera settings. I’m guessing that few who read this blog have seen floodwater rising at the rate of a foot an hour and heading right at them. I don’t have a clue how the water from hurricanes and tsunamis rise, but my guess is that it is so rapid and violent that there is little time to do anything except flee. This flood was slow torture with people trying to save what they could while living in hopes that the rise would slow or stop before it got to them.
This was the sight I saw then I looked north on Main Ave. as the water was rising toward my property.
Water is about to cross the road coming from the east side of South Main Ave. This is just across the street from my store building. The bird is picking at something or just taking a drink. I suppose the sight of this is no big deal to him.
I had my car door open and was about to leave. My time was up and I knew I didn't want to be wading around in the filthy waters of the Forked Deer River. You can barely see a tip of the wrought iron railing in the shadow of the building leading up the steps into the store.
I waited just a bit longer and this shot is how the water really started coming into my lot. It ran in front of my vehicle along a low spot in the parking lot. After this I got into my car and headed for church for our regularly scheduled Evangelism committee meeting. We discussed how we might help the Red Cross in their efforts to aid the flood victims.
I've always hated whiners and I've tried to refrain from too much whining about all of this on the blog, but my sister and I got more bad news this week when we were told that all the costly restoration we did to our Dist. Co. still did not pass inspection, so there is more to be done. I’ve been in limbo for these past 3 months trying to decide what to do about my store building but it looks like the decision could be out of my hands. It all has to do with the property tax values, flood plains, damage estimates, codes, and on and on. I’m supposed to get the final word on Monday. All the brain space I’ve devoted to this most probably has been wasted energy. My attitude is going to be that the best thing will ultimately happen - and I’m sticking to it!
The shot at the top of this post was taken as the sun was setting after my meeting at the church. I was headed back toward our business and then later for home. By that time water had already entered my store building and was beginning to run under the doors of our AB Dist. Co. This particular photo was taken on the side of the highway before I got as far south as our property. If you can make out the roof shown toward the right hand side of the shot, it is the Juvenile Detention Center which almost had to be evacuated. The water never got into that building, but I'm betting the snakes were a huge problem there. Snakes were a huge problem everywhere. They came out ahead of the floodwater. May you never have to witness something like this firsthand.
I'll know the fate of my building come Monday, I suspect.
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