Saylorville Lake Sunshine – 90 Degrees
I realized today, I’m about a third of the way through my year-long project of posting daily (mostly). I remember thinking when I started this “who knows what the year will bring?” The weather has been full of surprises all over the country this year.
As I sit here in our new site that will be home for the next several weeks I can’t help but feel grateful. First and formost we are in the midst of devastating flooding all around us and we have not been injured or had any property damage. A local radio personality lost his life Saturday night in the torrential flash flooding that occurred in Des Moines. 10” of rain in a couple of hours caught everyone off guard. The family I work for suffered substantial property damage due to the deluge of rain overwhelming the storm sewer system in their neighborhood. I have not seen damage like this since 1993 when the entire Midwest flooded. The 500-year flood they called it. The Corps watches the lake level and emergency spillway closely and we all hope for the best. So far, the water is going out the Dam Outlet at maximum capacity of 22,000 CFS. The problem is it is coming in the north end at 33,000 CFS so the lake continues to rise steadily. They predict it will crest on the 8th now.
We work for an amazing Corps of Engineers project. The staff bent over backwards to find us all sites in the campgrounds that will accommodate our length and power needs. We won’t have the luxury of full hook ups till we go back to the village later this summer, but that is a small inconvenience considering the situation we are all in. Then there is the family I work for. There is a reason I have stayed friends with Jeff all these years. His whole family are some of the best people I know. With all they had going on themselves my co-workers and the Kirschbaum’s made it possible for me to take today off so we could get moved. My daughter loaned us her pickup this morning to haul all my summer container garden our deck and patio furniture to the new site. When we move around in the winter we don’t have but a fraction of the outdoor stuff that we do in the summer when we are in one place April to October. This move was much more involved than our normal routine.
I’m thankful for the volunteer community that we are a part of at Saylorville. Everyone is keeping a great sense of humor about our predicament and pitching in to help each other where ever we can. We are all scattered about in a campground on the west side of the lake but still kind of together.
We have a beautiful, shaded site that backs up to the woods and looks out over a big ravine. In our 17 years together, we have never spent time in this campground. Mostly because it is on the side of the lake with no boat ramps to speak of and we come here to boat. It will be a nice opportunity to experience Saylorville from the other side of the lake with different views, different birds inhabiting the timber behind us no sun beating down on the big windows each afternoon, I am thrilled to be here. The only thing that could make it better is FHU’s.
I have to drive by Sandpiper, where the village is, each morning on my way into work, so I will stop and check out the situation. They wanted us out before the water invades, which will be soon, so they can get over there and take the guts out of all the electric boxes and remove the big power supply before it gets inundated with nasty, river water and debris.
I’ll talk tomorrow about how Champ’s job will change for the foreseeable future. In the midst of all this I still need to get two newsletters ready by Wednesday so here are some pictures from our evacuation day and I’ll sign off with my usual.
Until tomorrow…
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