Water, Water Everywhere...

...and there is no where to go.

Since I don't want to misrepresent myself, I have been in a flood, and sucked down by it and it delivered my ass to another city.

The golf course had a "creek" that ran through it, called McAlpine. It's banks were about thirty feet tall, but it received the water from all of the southern part of the city. As the city built up with car lots, strip malls and other developments there was more concrete and asphalt pouring water into the storm drains when a front came through. On many an occasion it went out of its banks and flooded parts of the course. As time went on, and it got worse.

We had alot of expensive electronic components in various locations, and as best we tried after each flood to counteract the next, they would add more concrete and asphalt to the point that we couldn't keep up.

It caught me on a bridge one day. Trying to save the electronics in the booster pump house. I parked on high ground and traversed my way to the little shed that housed said pumps. The water hadn't yet enveloped the little building, so I was able to kill the power, but, as Mother Nature would have it, it was all for naught.

In a flash the water rose so quickly that I couldn't get back to the truck and all I could do was float helplessly in the water that had risen from the creek.

I was still about 100 yards from the creek itself, but there were no obstacles in my path to grab hold of, so I resigned myself to a float down the creek. Needless to say, that's some ragging ass water, full of logs, snakes, coolers, and various and sundry articles relating to human existence.

The first thing I did was grab the Motorola walkie-talkie from my pants and send a message that I was trapped and floating. I knew the terrain well enough to know where I would enter the creek, and that there was a city sewer line that crossed the creek just a few yards ahead of where I anticipated my entrance.

When I hit the creek, there was no sewer line to be found. Not good. I had never seen the water that high in my 25 years. So I just called upon my lifeguard training and swimming experience and rode it out as best I could. I got bumped and bruised along the way, but I ended up in Pineville just a soaked ass old man doing his job.

So to those people in the Midwest suffering through the floods; get the hell outta there. Nuff said.