Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Roads Washed Out All Over

People for some inexplicable reason drive around and over barricades, and damage signs.
A mile from home, on our way to Faye and Rick's for another Stellar Supper.








































We went for a little drive around our area on Sunday afternoon and had to take a few detours.

The Wadena News came out today with loads of photos of the flooding in our district. I hadn't realized that there are families who've had to leave their homes, and one is even having its grocery supplies delivered by quad, as it's no longer possible to drive up to their farmhouse. Others are battling water that is trying to fill their basements; they're hauling out carpets, furniture and other stored items, and manning sump pumps till the wee hours. People are getting tired and more than a little worried about the cost of repairing everything. By comparison our family is sitting high and dry — as long as the pumps don't seize up.

Today it's cloudy and cold, after an early morning rain. Fingers are crossed and braided in hopes we don't get more precipitation.  
This farmer's field is now more of an island.





















 I made an early run to town with Scott, to have a truck repaired before he headed off to work at my sister Karen's new Aurora Beach house, which he's drywalling. While we waited for the mechanic to finish, we took ourselves out for your basic prairie breakfast — toast, fried eggs, hashbrowns, sausage and/or bacon — and then visited the credit union, the post office, and a construction customer of Scott's. So I'm getting a late start to my working day, and had best get at it.

3 comments:

  1. Cant really imagin how it is. Hope the pumps are working.We also have high groundwater, but not like you.

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  2. I never in my head see the west as watery.Cultural ignorance or what? I've been living long enough to have seen many a Saskatchewan/Manitoba flood but it never sticks.

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  3. Well, in Saskatchewan and particularly in our area, we've had extremely high precipitation since 2007. In 2010 it was three or four times the usual annual amount; last summer, we got rain almost daily and it laid on top of the ground, unable to soak into already waterlogged grass or gravel. Very strange. Then we had more snow than usual this winter, so the runoff from melting is voluminous. We haven'd had this much precipitation since the 1950s. Right now the water collecting here (at Fishing Lake) can't be released because it goes to Manitoba, and they are already widely flooded. The water has to be released strategically so that each place can handle it; and it is backing up in many spots.

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