grassy knoll more

The other day Ryan and I were in the family room and all of a sudden Ryno's eyes lit up, his ears perked and he exclaimed, "THAT'S A BACK HOE!" ummmm,...excuse me? He ran to the window, threw open the blinds, and sure enough a back hoe was driving down our street. As funny as that is, Ryan's uncanny ability to identify construction equipment by sound is not the reason for this post. A back hoe was driving down our street because our little creek across the way was very close to overflowing and the city was bringing in sandbagging goods. We were headed out to our date a bit later and saw a bunch of people in the condos across the street (condos that back up to the creek) sandbagging.

Well we decided to join the sandbagging festivities. An hour or so into it, word got out (as it always does) and the Mormon battalion showed up and there were so many people there that we thought we could sneak away for dinner and a movie (Loco lizard in park city and Iron man 2) Around midnight we got a call that they still needed people so we came home changed clothes and were at it again until around 1 ish. yuck.

It flooded SOOOOO much. the river spilled out into the street and parking lot and the park that the river goes by had water up to six feet deep where there's usually no water. Sad Day. traffic's been a nightmare and there's tons of debris all over the place. It's since gone down a bit, but it's still really high. my arms are seriously sore from hauling all those 50 lb bags. lots of fun. And the poor geese lost the little grassy knoll that they so enjoy hanging out on.

So the picture above is of the bridge that the water goes under to cross the street. Usually there's a good 3/4 feet clearance and as you can see, that's not the case. That picture was taken in the evening when we started sandbagging and the river rose at least two more feet by the time it peaked. Some of the bridges in Murray park are submerged. Pretty crazy.