MAPLE CREEK MEMORIES II

CLOUDBURST

We had an exceptionally cold winter and then, in March, summer came. No spring, just summer. Hot southerly winds swept in but did not bring the rains we needed to get the crops in the ground. When you get an early summer like that one, you try to get the crops in the ground as soon as possible so that the crop can be made before the hot, hot July and August weather hits and dries everything up.

April came and brought a few showers but no general rain. Maple Creek was still running but very sluggishly with a much reduced flow. May was no better, and only the larger pools remained. Our swimming holes were a godsend for the fish and other water life then. June was a teaser--heavy clouds would roll up in the west every afternoon, it seemed, but no water fell from them for us. Sometimes, overnight, we would get a small drizzle, but by seven o'clock the next morning it had all dried up.

July came with blisteringly hot temperatures, over one hundred on a lot of days. We got some temporary relief with a shower or two. But these showers did not put water in Maple Creek, it was all sucked up by the parched land before it could form a run to the creek. One time it rained hard back on Maple Mountain and water ran through the creek for about a half-mile into the valley before it petered out.

We had speculated on what the coming forest fire season might be like. We had had a number of fires in the spring months and the ground was in much worse shape at the end of July. Many trees had shed their leaves to protect from excessive moisture loss already and the forest floor was covered with these tinder dry leaves.

August arrived with a bang--literally--huge thunderstorms and the accompanying lightning that left everyone breathless. But no rain. Just lightning and thunder. We heard that on some of the other branches in the area that rain was occurring, we even walked through some rain on the way to and from church, but none came to Maple Creek. With the thunderstorms lurking, the heat, combined with the sky-high humidity left us sweltering night and day.

Forecasters said the area was getting welcome rains. Sure, everyone but us.A small fire broke out from lightning one day and was quickly extinguished by the young men in the community. Fortunately the group had been walking in the woods on the way to one of their houses when a tree was struck on the ridge above them and they quickly put the fire out with their hands and feet only.

Late August and we got some gentle rain overnight. Not even any lightning or thunder. The next morning broke bright, but foggy, one of those mornings where the sun hurts your eyes but you can't see the sun. And hot. It was a hot morning and around nine the fog was gone. A few puffy clouds appeared in the northwestern sky. By about one in the afternoon, the clouds had turned dark and were massing in the sky in the north and west.

Far away rumbles of thunder could be heard. As time wore on, the thunder came closer and the lightning began flashing all around. The first big drops of rain began falling, tentatively it seemed, and then began falling fast and furiously. The hail then began and the storm lasted for about fifteen or twenty minutes altogether. No big deal, but we got some water, finally. We could still use more.

Suddenly, the wind came up again. It blew from the west, then the north, then the east and then the south. It blew from all directions at once. We could see limbs falling and a couple of old dead trees crashed over, then the rain began in earnest. This time it didn't stop after a few minutes. Shortly it was coming in sheets down the hollow and everything went white with the sheer volume of rain that was falling. The rain grew in intensity until we could no longer see the hill across the field from us, then we could hardly see the field. Vision became restricted to inside the house and outside on the porches, anywhere it was not raining.

In normal years, in normal storms, these rains last only for fifteen minutes, occasionally a half-hour for such fierce rain and wind storms. After about an hour there was no sign of letup. This one held sway for almost two hours before abating enough for us to get a good look at what had happened. We could only see right around the house to start and it was really a mess. Every rill, run and ditch was overflowing with brown water. The ditch going into the culvert below the house was blocked and water was overrunning the road, and backed up eighty or one hundred feet up the road, beyond our back path.

With the rain lessening in intensity rapidly, we began to be able to see the creek, or, perhaps I should say river. What a sight. The creek was visible for about three-quarters of a mile upstream and about one-quarter mile downstream from our house on the hill. Maple Creek was big and brown and full of brush, garbage, trees--you name it, it was in there. The creek was out of its banks all along the watercourse. In fact, in some places the creek was no longer where it normally was, but spread all over the fields it usually ran around.

The creek was getting bigger all the time. The bridge had disappeared at the last house we could see upstream, effectively marooning them as the only other way out was to go through the creek, or over the hill. And that was not a viable way either for they would have to cross Finney Creek on the other side of the hill and it was out of its banks too. And as we watched, the creek became more and more swollen with water from normally dry creeks coming out of the hills anf sweeping across the fields. Closer to us, the large pool where we fished had spread across the adjoining field for about a hundred feet. That particular pool was normally only five or six feet deep, with a ten foot bank up into the field.

As the creek swung to the left at the hill and barn just west of us, it was up into the barn, looked like about three or four feet worth and had moved out into the large field across the road from our house. The fence that bordered the creek, about thirty feet from it, and over three feet high had completely submerged in the brown swirling water.

We could see across the field that the stream was full of trash and trees, boards from bridges and junk of all kinds from along the banks upstream. This junk had been piled along the creek banks for years and years. No one had ever expected to see such big water, and some of the 'junk' was actually good materials that no one thought would end up in a flood, as we never had them like this.

The rain had stopped by now, and the clouds were fast disappearing. Blue sky was showing up in the jagged rents between the clouds. Within a short while, the sky was a clear azure and the sun was shining brightly on the devastation. We left the house to take a walkaround to see the damage closeup.

Our place suffered very little damage except for a few tree limbs and the old trees that we had intended to cut for firewood that fall being pushed over, so that was no great loss, we just didn't have to cut them down now. Directly, some folks from up the hollow arrived to check out what happened in the lower valley. They told tales of chicken house being carried away, three old junk cars being swept into the creek, a few privies that had been built on knolls near the creek were now gone, every bridge and footlog were in it also. Corn cribs in some barns and hay in others had been ruined. There were reports of some pigs going down the creek also.

As we talked the creek was still rising. We walked down to the bottom of the hill, next to the bridge going up Finney Creek. What a sight. The bridge was rock solid but the water was only about six inches or so below the beams. This bridge is just below the confluence of Maple and Finney creeks, and Finney Creek was running overbank also. The shack that sat between the two creeks was still out of the water but not by much. The barn that sat in a small field half surrounded by Finney Creek was awash with about a foot of water over the field and inside the barn. That section of Finney Creek Road was still open, and a couple of the larger guys ran over and opened the barn doors and let the stock loose.

About the time they returned to our side of the bridge, the privy siting on the bank of Maple Creek by the shack let go and fell into the creek. It took very little time for it to be swept downstream and into the bridge, where it was literally blown apart by the force of the collision. The old lady that lived in the shack had been on her porch screaming all the time we had been there, but we could not make out anything she was saying due to the roar of the water rushing by.

More and more trees and brush came down the creeks and eventually blocked the waters' way under the bridge. With the two creeks now at their highest, the rise was dramatic behind the blockage and the shacks' porch finally went under water. The old lady screamed and screamed, but finally retreated up the hill to stand at her chicken coop and scream. Both roads were now under water and the stock from the barn had moved up to higher ground near the treeline across the field.

Traffic was now able to come down the main hollow road as no bridges on that road had been torn out. We learned that one additional family had had their vehicle bridge washed out also, trapping their truck on the other side of the creek, so they would be walking for a few days, too. What was worse, on family had piled their bridge building supplies on the creek bank in preparation for replacing their old structure. Those supplies were now halfway or bettr toward the river, boards beams and all. Even the spikes were gone, as they had placed the kegs on top of the timber and when the timber went, so did the spikes.

Traffic that had made it almost up to the bridge from the other way had to back up to higher ground as the bridge went under. Even at that, there was still some water under their vehicles. One tried to back out of the hollow but soon returned announcing that the lower bridge was under also and that they were all trapped until the flood receded.

The old bridge had been built by the WPA back in the 1930's and they built it well. Trees, rocks, bedsprings, mattresses and even that pig, all hit the bridge and it stood there and took it all. And while a lot of bridges on those old roads have since been replaced, that one is still in use while the road above has been tarred and graveled and the paved with asphalt.

After about an hour, the water was off the bridge and a short while later was back within the creek banks. During the time we stood around and watched and talked, we saw probably fifteen or twenty chickens, a few dogs that had gotten caught, that one pig and a kitten floated by riding gingerly on a plank. The kitten didn't make it, however. We found it later lying on a high bank.

The general consensus among hollow dwellers was that this was the worst flood any had ever seen or heard tell of in the hollow. The oldest man in the community at that time was in his mid-nineties and he said that it was the worst he had ever seen. He had been born in the same house he was then living in way back in the late 1850's. The creek washed up huge sand and gravel dumps in various places and left other places scoured down to bare rock. But, as sometimes happens in cases like this, our fishing and swimming holes were spared, as was the waterfall. We did have to rebuild our dams, but we had plenty of material to work with.

Fortunately, although there was some property damage, it was nothing that couldn't be replaced. And, thankfully, no one was injured in this cloudburst and its aftermath. But those of us who lived through it, have never forgotten it.even though over fifty years have now passed. And most of us look at the skies very closely when it begins to send out lightning and thunder begins to crash around us. Those of us who live by creeks and watercourses are very much aware of the dangers that are inherent in such locations.