Anyone remember that song from Sunday School?
We have had rain nearly every day for the past couple of weeks. Lots and lots of rain. All that rain has to go somewhere, and one of those somewheres is the lake on which my parents' home sits.
College Boy and I took a flying trip there on Tuesday afternoon with over 300 pounds of sandbags in the back of the van. The creek next to my parents' house, which flows into the lake in FRONT of their house, was rolling. The lake was high and the water chocolaty brown. This lake, Taneycomo, was formed when Powersite Dam was built on the White River in 1913. In 1958, Table Rock Dam was built upstream, which created (very large) Table Rock Lake, and which changed Taneycomo from a warm-water lake to a cold-water lake, filling it with water from the depths of Table Rock (200 feet deep at the dam) through electricity-generating turbines. Taneycomo looks more like a wide, serene river than a lake, especially when it's flooded and the water, no longer serene, is flowing from a combination of water coming from Table Rock, the area creeks that empty into it, and the water going over Powersite Dam at the other end.
College Boy and I arrived here shortly after the dock from the house next door, on the creek, was pulled away from the shore and took off into the channel of the lake and headed off on an adventure of its own. (This dock tried to make a get away seven years ago, but it stopped at the mouth of the creek, six inches from crashing into my parents' dock, which tried to go on its OWN adventure by heading INTO the creek, pushed by a violent eddy caused by flood waters coming OUT of the creek.)
The creek crested shortly after we got there, and by morning, the lake was down about a foot. We (meaning the College Boy) sandbagged the back door and went on home.
Then it rained some more. Lots more. And THAT water is mostly running into Table Rock Lake, which is rising rather rapidly. After some pretty devastating flooding in 2011, the Corps of Engineers has been more proactive, and they have not been dumping water into Taneycomo from Table Rock. Yet. As of this moment, Table Rock has about four more feet it can rise before it flows over the flood gates. Fingers remain crossed that when this happens (odds are that it will), the water is able to flow right on down the lake and make its way to the Gulf of Mexico without stopping to come into my parents' house.
Is that ten thankfuls? Or is it only half of one, since we're still waiting to see if we have dodged the flooding or not?
Here are some pictures from my week to make up for my lack of real thankfuls:
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| Sunday evening sunset, as rain clouds build in the west. |
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| Same evening, looking southwest. The broken trees are from the tornado. |
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| Volleyball tournament. School ball. Already. |
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| The fog is masking the brown of the flood waters. |
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| In 2011, the water rose to just this side of the bird bath. |
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| Muck that washed out of the creek and into the empty boat slip. |
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| College Boy using a 10 foot pole to knock the muck out of the boat slip. |
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| He couldn't resist getting involved in muck removal. |
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| There should be rocks and stuff along the shore line. |
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| The neighbor's dock used to be at the foot of these stairs. Hmmm. |
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| Top: lake as usual. Bottom: lake with too much yucky water. |
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| Top: the point across the creek where people often sit on the rocks and fish. As you can see, no rocks. All under water. Bottom: The next morning, after the rain water quit flowing out of the creek and the lake level went down a foot. |
While we're here, waiting to see if the sandbags were overkill or a necessity, you write your thankfuls and link them up, below.
Your hosts
A Fly on our (Chicken Coop)
Wall, Amycake and the Dude, Considerings, Finding Ninee, Getting
Literal, I Want Backsies, The Meaning of Me, Thankful Me, Uncharted, The Wakefield Doctrine
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