Wow! What next? We've had rain, snow, ice, rain...

I think this post is 101. Wow!

Wind, rain, snow, ice, more rain, flooding, etc. Yikes!

This post is today-January 8, 2009.
No pictures to post. They are too upsetting. (Our house is fine!)
FYI... We evacuated yesterday around 2pm and returned home today around 9am.

This is an experience I hope I never have to relive. However, on the bright side, it was a good drill for us!

We live in Orting, WA. We moved here 4 months ago. Orting lies between the Carbon River and the Puyallup River. We do not live right next to the water. I'm not a fan of that. However our housing development isn't too close but not too far. It is probably between 750 to 1,000 feet. Now mind you there is quite a high bank, a levee, wetland, then a rise and then the development. We are NOT on the water end. We are on higher ground.

When you get a call from the Emergency Center telling you this is not an evacuation call but an 'awareness call' that the river is rising and to be prepared. Then 3 hours later you get a call from same telling us 'it is advisable to leave, not mandate, but strongly urging us to leave.' Then the fire dept. comes around in their van with a loudspeaker, 'We strongly advise everyone to evacuate before 4pm.' The river is expected to get to 38 feet. Normally it is around 20 feet.

What goes through your mind?
How does this affect you?
What are your first thoughts?

Here's where ridiculous sets in...
'Darn! I should have washed my hair yesterday and now it's too late!' (Really, I thought this.)
"Oh well, I'll just take 5 minutes and use my electric curling brush." (Which I did!)
I tell myself..."Now Diana, be reasonable, who cares what your hair looks like, get packing! It's stupid to even think of 'washing' your hair!" (And I didn't wash it-but I did at the hotel.)

I scurried around and had everything ready in 90 minutes, this included putting things up high that I didn't want damaged and among those things I had boxes of genealogy and photos I didn't want ruined. I had called Neil with a heightened voice of anxiety. He said that he would be home in one hour and to sit tight. He had just left off some items with our son David at his work. He told David we were fine. Then after he leaves David, he gets this panicky call from me!

We are about packed when the fire dept. was driving through our neighborhood to leave. They could see our car doors open and getting ready. Now Kirsten was sick. She had been sick the previous night and had a bad time. It was 6am this morning when she finally fell asleep.
I quietly packed while she was sleeping. We wake her up at 2pm and carry her out to the car.

We drive over a bridge not too far from our home. We look down at the river and 'oh my it was getting high and very brisk!' It had about 4 feet before it got to the top. We checked into a Best Western Plaza Hotel 20 minutes away in Puyallup for one night. I call all of our family to let them know we're okay and keep us and our neighbors in their prayers. (Thank you everyone!) The best news ever, Kirsten slept through the entire night and did not wake up once! I was quite worried about her health. We didn't stay home to 'tough it out' like a lot of people did. They closed the roads coming in and out of Orting. If Kirsten needed medical help, we'd be stuck. We chose to leave. I'm so relieved we did. Neil and I and Kirsten had a good sound night of sleep! We all needed it! The previous night we were up most of it with Kirsten!

I called the Fire Dept. in Orting this morning at 8:35am and they said, "It's all clear, everyone can come home." Whew! What a relief!

The news had reported that this would be the first time in 27 years they would have asked the residents of Orting to evacuate. I'm sure with the multitude of prayers ascending to heaven, that our Father-in-Heaven was very merciful to everyone in Orting. Other areas quite a way from us have been hit pretty bad. Our prayers are with them.

Western WA. has been hit with record levels of rainfall, melting snow, wind, run off, and you name it, it's caused major flooding, mudslides, landslides. Our 3 major passes have been shut down until Friday or Saturday. The I-5 going down to Portland has been shut down for 20 miles between Chehalis and Centrailia. They are flooded again. That part of the I-5 is under water. We also had flooding in WA. in Nov. from too much rain.

Needless to say we were grateful to see the 'sun' come out today and no more rain for the next 5 days. The temperatures rose into the 50's and that's why the snow started melting, add 6 inches of rain to that and wow, what a mess! Now the temperatures are dropping and you guessed it, 1 to 2 feet of more snow in the mountains. What next? Faith and prayer and trust in the Lord will bring us all through!

I'm glad to be home and have a home to come home to! :o)

I did learn some things about myself that surprised me. I'm glad in a way this experience happened because if this ever happens again, (and I hope it won't) I think I will handle things a little better as far as being panicky. I've talked to several people who have lived here for 20 plus years and they have never had to evacuate and they too felt pretty scared and nervous. We are all human with human emotions. I never doubted and prayed even harder and I felt peace that our home would be okay.