The email a friend of ours sent out yesterday..... Hello friends, Pictures attached. Some before the flood, some during - for comparison. As you may well know, Marietta Ohio has been hit by the worst flood in probably nearly 50 years. My home is here. And it is devastating. I have seen things in the past few days I never thought I would see. It has had a profound effect on me. Just today, I waded through chest deep water to get to higher ground to get my dog out of the house. I found higher ground at the railroad tracks. So did others who waded there as well. It was like a communion of people whose homes had been wiped out, and their things destroyed. I saw a young girl walking the tracks - carrying a dirty wet babydoll, She was walking on the railroad tracks in barefeet. Her parents were two steps ahead. They were carrying all they now owned. It looked like scene out of a movie. But it was real life. And it was heart wrenching. It took the rain from two big hurricanes to rip up through the Ohio Valley within a week to do this. No one was prepared. No one. On a sign outside my home, someone wrote "Ivan Sucks." I must agree. Hurricane Ivan does suck. I have never been through a flood before. My condo is flooded, and the trailer I own on a river-front lot is nearly up to its roof in water. Total loss. The water has still not receded, though the trend has finally started downward. I took my Waverunner out today - it was floating in the garage so I hopped on and took a drive through my neighborhood to check on people and offer help. It is eerie to drive a watercraft downtown on the streets where you live. This is a devastation I have never seen and hoped I would not see. It is sobering, and sad. Those of you who know me well know I love this river. I swim in it, I boat on it, I water-ski on it, I have barefoot skied on it. I stare at it and marvel at it, and revere it. And now, more than ever, I am in awe of it. This event has an effect on me that I cannot describe. The utter quietness - the stillness - after the flood waters rage in is strangely beautiful. The toxic soup of septic waste, paint thinner, cleaning chemicals, is horrendous. This is not just water. This is waste. This is no pool. This is a cesspool. Soon, hopefully, the flood waters will recede. And when they do, the cleanup will begin. Until then, we are on an island. All of us affected will need to band together and help each other as we go forward. I am not a particularly religious man, but I pray for all those who have been negatively affected by this event. I hope you will too. Thanks, Jim
continues its starting to be a problem here.......And think, we were all told it missed us and it wasn't going to be that bad afterall....
There was all kinds of flooding in the Southern Tier of NY also. I don't think I've ever seen the rivers as high as they were a few days ago. It's amazing how a hurricane in the Gulf can affect so many here in the northeast!! Can't imagine how bad it was in places that were directly hit by Ivan. From what I've seen on the news....there looks to be several more hurricanes forming in the Atlantic now. I think we all need to keep each other in our prayers!!
