August 20, 2006

• Wet and Quiet

  There’s hardly any traffic on the highway.  It is flooded and/or
  washed out in four places, so the usual steady stream of big trucks
  growling by on their way between Fairbanks and Anchorage is
  stilled.  Likewise, in the opposite direction the railroad tracks
  are uncommonly quiet, without even the sounds of the local traffic that
  continue on the highway.  We are not facing evacuation, being on
  relatively high ground here, but not far north of us an area has been
  evacuated, and another one to the southeast.  (adn.com/news story with photos and map)

  Several people have expressed interest or curiosity about my
  health/well-being.  Well… physically I’m still limited and
  mentally I’m still inclined to forget that fact and come crashing into
  those limits from time to time.  Having a critical case of cabin
  fever after weeks of rain, yesterday when the rain let up for a while
  and there were a few breaks in the clouds, Doug and I went out to view
  the high water.  I overdid, knocked myself out yesterday, and am
  paying for it today with an unusual level of neuromuscular dysfunction.

  
  First, I drove out the cul de sac.  That apparent stream of water
  across the muskeg is actually just the portion of the flooded marsh
  that’s visible where the snowmachine/four-wheeler trail has killed the
  vegetation.  A month or so ago, the ground was dry out there and I
  could walk the trail.

  
  Sheep Creek, usually a narrow stream down the middle of a wide, rocky bed, is over its banks now.

  
  A long line of salmon was hugging the bank trying to get upstream to
  spawn, but barely managing to make any progress against the flood.

  
  Along the south side of Sheep Creek, water was flowing through the woods and we heard fish jumping back in there.

  From Sheep Creek, we turned around and headed north.  At Goose
  Creek, the stream was bankfull, but the riprap (heavy rocks used to
  stabilize the banks) that was put in after the floods about twenty
  years ago was keeping it from overflowing, and the new bridge was
  intact, so we headed on north to Montana Creek, where the old lodge had
  washed away in the floods of the mid-1980s.  One of my favorite
  crazy neighbor stories involves the usual crowd of drunks sitting in
  the bar that night watching the water rise until it floated the fridge.

  
  There was a broad, shallow stream flooding across the footpath by the
  campground that replaced the old lodge.  On both sides of the
  highway, acre after acre of campsites were under water.

  
  A bunch of weekend recreationists on four-wheelers were there when we
  arrived.  They skirted around the closed gate and the signs saying
  that the place was closed due to flooding.  While we were there,
  the
  new owners drove in and vehemently ordered the quads out of
  there.  They complained to us about the floods putting them out of
  business and the weekenders tearing things up, as if they wouldn’t have
  enough cleanup and repair to do already.  Businesses all up and
  down this highway are experiencing increased expense and decreased
  income due to the rain, including Greyfox’s roadside stand.  He
  hasn’t been able to open for business for about two weeks.

  
  Just off the shoulder of the road, the highway department had set up
  this solar powered stream gauge to alert them if the water rose enough
  to threaten the highway.  The bridge at Montana Creek, as well as
  the one at Sheep Creek, had washed out in the eighties flood, isolating
  us so that the National Guard was supplying people out here with
  necessities by helicopter while repairs were made.  The
  “necessity” most commonly requested was cigarettes — no surprise
  there.  All the new bridges appear to be holding in this
  area.  The nearest washout is about thirty miles from here.

  

  Mushrooms are plentiful this year.

  

  

  It is still raining.  For the first couple of weeks of rain, we
  only had two small leaks in our roof.  They were in the usual
  places and easy to deal with:  just a couple of dishpans under the
  drips.  Two nights ago, when we were hit by the thickest of the
  remnants of the supertyphoon that tore up the Asian coast a week or two
  ago, the rain came down in sheets and new leaks developed all over the
  house.  One of them was right over the monitor here.  We hung
  a little bucket from a hook under the leak and shrouded the monitor
  with a thick towel.  The new leaks have stopped and we’re back to
  just the old familiar drips, but the monitor still is peeking out from
  under its towel.

  

  • 4:08 pm
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