My grandparents live in a house with a beautiful large yard that backs Little Cottonwood Creek. Growing up, their yard has always provided a ton of adventures for my cousins and I.
Even today, every time I visit my grandparents, I go and take a peek at the creek. In the spring the melting snow from the mountains starts making its way down the canyon, and as the summer temperatures heat up, the creek becomes a rushing river. After that, the waters drop again to just a couple of feet, and you can gaze down to the bottom and see little fish swimming by.
In the thirty plus years my grandparents have lived in their home, they've only had minor scares when it's come to the creek. Sometimes high waters would cause the water table to raise and make their yard soggy. Other times they were put on alert of rising waters, but no major damage was done.
That was until this year.
Remember this Facebook message and corresponding tweets?
Let me share the story....
The night of June 6th I got a call late at night from my mom telling me that the whole family was at my grandparents house because the creek was flooding. The sudden increase in temperatures had melted the snow so quickly that tons of water was coming rushing down the canyon. She told me to come over just to see all the commotion. She said I wouldn't believe it.
So we packed up Kaeden, and headed over.
Outside of my grandparent's front yard, firefighters and volunteers were working to fill sandbags. At this point it's nearly midnight, but they just kept going. The creek was expected to crest shortly after midnight, so after a tall wall of sandbags had been put in place, all anyone could do was wait.
Even though the waters didn't get above the sandbag walls that night, there were portions of my grandparent's yard that the firefighters were not willing to risk the man power or resources to save. The creek had broken it's bank where it curves around my grandparents yard, and they were left with the creek essentially running through their yard. It was very crazy to see. You could hear the creek rushing by, and then realize that it had expanded to rush right next to you.
To give you an idea of how quickly it was rushing by, I took this picture without the flash. While blurry and dark, I like how it captured what it felt to be next to the rushing torrent. Total chaos.
A team of divers came by to check the water levels, and update the residents throughout the night. They were also ready to jump in should anyone fall into the dangerous water.
And this cute chick is my grandma. She was the star of the evening when she was interviewed by the local news. She did great!
The next morning my mom and I went back to see how my grandparents were faring.
My grandpa of course was already preparing for another day of work in protecting his home.
The water had receded during the night.
In the pictures above, everywhere you see water is where my grandparents have little paver paths winding through their wild ferns. Everywhere you see mud....that used to be so full of ferns you couldn't even see the ground.
I added the next picture for comparison's sake. Just remember the bench. At this point in the day the water/mud levels were just below the actual bench.
But it wasn't long before the waters would rise again.
After the first night of near disaster, the Unified Fire Authority kept a continual watch on the water levels. It was a 24 hour effort to keep all the homes and businesses up and down the creek safe from the rising waters.
With the warm weather of the day, the firefighters were expecting more flooding then the night before. They told my family to get the word out because they needed as many volunteers as possible for more sandbagging.
Hence my Facebook messages, Tweets, and texts.
They were supposed to be setting up a post on my grandparents street, but I guess they later moved it down the creek a bit to a Walmart. There was an assisted living down there that had been in constant danger of flooding.
When I arrived that day, we filled some sandbags...
But with all the help, we quickly ran out of sand.
So... it was a waiting game.
In the meantime, I went around and took pictures. I joked with my grandparents that at least they were finally giving me something to blog about.
What's this? You might ask...
Oh. You know. It's just a sixty foot tree that decided to fall over in the middle of the whole fiasco.
Nice tree. Nice.
My grandma heard a loud cracking noise the first night of the flooding. This tree is located in a undeveloped side yard of their home. They are thinking that it must have had shallow roots that when the flood waters came up, it loosened them and it just fell. The top of the tree landed about 10 feet from their house!
Meredith came over to help out with whatever she could, and while we were sitting around waiting, we got a little star struck when we noticed the local newscasters had come over to do a live newscast.
Be it slight boredom, or whatever, we became stalkers.
We kept trying to sneak up and snap a picture of them.
Merz decided we needed to look a little more legit and a little less stalker-ish. So she jumped in the shot.
We followed them around for the longest time just snapping pictures. We were pretty proud of our overall proximity in this one.
But then, like 20 shots later, while we were all surveying the fallen tree, Mark Koelbel looked over at us and said, "Would you two just like a picture with us?"
Oh. You mean you noticed? How embarassing!
Meredith said something like, "Sorry for all the pictures, but you are like celebrities."
To which Shauna Lake said, "Oh, we're used to having cameras in our face."
And with that, our 15 seconds of fame began.
After which Meredith immediately apologized, "Oh. Sorry for just grabbing you Shauna."
Love it!
But who knew that a little later Meredith and Shauna would become so close they'd practically hold hands?
Yep, they are pretty much BFF's.
In the meantime, the water kept rising
and rising
and rising.
Remember our bench, mud, and ferns from before?
As the water rose, more sandbags were delivered,
and for a short while a sandbag line formed.
Which Meredith rocked.
In the end, the water levels rose pretty high, but luckily it never reached my grandparents house. They have a multi-tiered yard, and thankfully the water never broke through the top tier where their how sits. I'm sure there were other people along the creek who were not as lucky.
There were a few more days of flooding, and my grandparents were left with what looked like a beach in their backyard. The creek had brought in so much sand and silt that once everything dried out it left the softest, prettiest sand you've ever seen. I tried to convince my grandpa to just put up a couple of cabanas and call it good, but for the little worker bee in his heart, it was a no go. He's been moving sandbags and silt out of his yard one wheelbarrow at a time.
One thing I can say though, through it all, my grandparents never lost their sense of humor.
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