HEROS

I think that all who serve “the public” during this weird winter of heavy rains / snow deserve the title “HERO” but especially those out in the weather, even if only directing traffic around mudslides and “puddles” large enough to wash an SUV off the road!!  Road workers clearing avalanches from through highways!  Engineers attempting to “save” dams from collapsing, road workers securing heavy equipment to “fix” - at least temporarily - the washed out portions of roads, highways, and freeways, and the handymen who happened upon a tree across a four lane freeway and grabbed the chainsaws from their pickups and REMOVED the blockade to the relief of the commuters stuck on Hiway 9 above San Jose. 

It has been nearly twenty years since our last REALLY WET winter and all the “old guys” who had seen one or two and learned to minimize the dangers, and find solutions, have retired.  Fortunately, we can now get a “heads up” via satellite and attempt to “be prepared!”  Dirt can only hold so much water before it becomes liquid itself we learn too late!  Roads collapse, even if just re-paved last year!  Ponds become rivers overflowing roads and causing damage to the support of those roads!  Dams find the easiest way for water to continue flowing downhill, eroding supposedly solid spillways!  Culverts plug up with debris and if no one is watching and doing something about it, pretty quickly homes are at risk. 

As WET as the dirt is it is a wonder that it doesn’t just “pop” those houses out.  Water has been used for millennia to raise buildings, heavy stones, and sunken treasure ships!!

We were installing a septic tank one time at a mountain cabin we were living in, and all went well, except we had no way to get sufficient water in it to hold it in the ground when it started raining!!  Floated just like a cork, or a float on your fishing line!  We had to use “Daisy the Backhoe” to lift the tank back out, re-dig the hole and then my husband, genius that he is, parked the backhoe on top of the tank as he used it to shovel the gravel and dirt around and OVER the tank once it was connected to the leach system!!  Memories are made of this….

May we all become “pro-active” - once the rains stop - fixing our own potholes, fixing our own drainage problems (or pay someone to do the work!), securing our own driveways, clearing our own culverts.  We have been lazy too long expecting “the government“ to take care of our infrastructure.  We will then enter the HERO fraternity, the “can do” sorority, the survivor society!  I know of four potholes that I will personally fill with asphalt patch once they dry out!  Have done it before, can do it again!!

AND WE WILL ALL REMEMBER THE WINTER of 2017!!  And perhaps build some more reservoirs quickly to catch more rain and melting snow to see us through the NEXT DROUGHT, because it will come!!