Turns out I missed some heavy duty stuff

 

While I was, on New Year’s Day, meeting my brother and my  cousin and her family in Southern California, Portland had torrential rain that caused Johnson Creek to flood.  The creek runs by my building a few blocks away, and is much lower than we are, so the flooding didn’t cause any problems here… but…

The creek runs right behind my friend’s house… on Foster Road, and Foster was closed by hip deep water last week.  The water rose, incedibly, and covered half of my friend’s backyard:

A tells me that the water lapped over the sandbags… and he had to move everything out of his storeroom.

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I got stuck on this bridge when the snow fell two weeks ago; I had no problems driving to my friend’s house, but, over-confident, I drove onto his street and my car sank in the deep snow.  It has 8 inches of clearance…. but we got 14 inches of snow, and my car sank in the deep snow.  Last week, the creek flooded over the bridge seen here:

I drove here on Saturday, and the signs on the freeway nearby said Foster Road was closed, 102nd Ave. to 122nd Ave, 20 blocks.  I got off the freeway anyway because I had talked to A a few hours before, and he said it was dry.

On the news tonight, there are full rainclouds moving into the Northwest, and they expect FEET of rain to fall this week.

This was A’s firepit a year ago after last year’s high water:

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And this was the firepit on Saturday:

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This house next door wasn’t flooded…but only because it sits on stilts.  As you can see in this picture, the rising water flung aside some of the trim under the house, and FILLED the space beneath it:

Can’t really see it from here, but there are several FEET of water under that house.

And, more is on the way.

Not snow, no, rain, and FEET of it.

oy.

My bus doesn’t float, and my car will sink…

Good thing me and the cat live on the eighth floor.

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