Odd to stand knee-deep in the current of Marys River while supporting one end of a seven-foot sofa—and all around you others are doing the same. It took all day to get a friend moved from her submerged house to dry land. By dark Wednesday evening, we still had not rescued much from the kitchen or the pantry. Humans move slowly when we have to wade the weight and speed of a river with a load in our arms.
The water came unexpectedly, though not as a surprise. Wet, heavy snow that fell throughout the Cascades and the Coastal Range over the weekend melted and merged with the torrents that fell Monday and Tuesday. Farmland can hold only so much water when all the tributaries back up from swollen rivers. Anything manmade quickly becomes amphibious. Very little of what we make for use on dry land can withstand the breadth and power of water.
I walked in the driving rain yesterday to gander at the Willamette River. I was awestruck by the volume and power that carried whole trees downstream. Megatons of power flowed past me in a matter of seconds. (We have found ways to harness that power, though not efficiently.)
Nature, in the end, will win.
Eventually, nature reclaims us all.
ReplyDeleteThe summer I moved out to NZ my home town flooded - everyone was so surprised. They'd forgotten there was a reason the area was named after a valley. When you sit and think about it long enough you realise no where on earth is particularly suited to what have become the needs of humans.....
... and sadly too many do not sit and think about it long enough.
ReplyDeleteI see property developers and speculators building and selling houses and plots of land in areas named for avalanches and floods. In Cyprus I've seen houses for sale being built on sand right next to the sea and sand being removed off the beaches (where turtles lay their eggs) to build golf courses. In Japan many communities were destroyed by the great tsunami of 2011 because those who built these roads and houses and factories chose to ignore the lines of ancient stones on the hills which said: Do Not build below this point. Nature will treat us with the contempt we deserve.
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