Who else is loosing their home to a river?

[lonewolf]

Some people have ,are or about to go though the same thing.
Seems like half of NorthAmerica is underwater

I live on the Kettle river.Should be on the news soon as it takes homes away.
All paid off and insurance covers nothing .
Lived on the water for 13 years now but this is the worst by far I've seen and we have not even got the record snow pak melt yet.
Where I am it's the 80x8ft trees coming down the river smashing into everything that does significant damage.
pics taken yesterday.
My neighbours sitting arear swept away overnight.
What can you do ?

[Hugh R]

So sorry to hear this. I'm pretty high and dry.

[Mark Henry]

Man that sucks, other than sandbags and pray I don't know what to say.
Beautiful country, my brother lived at Christina Lake, but it can be harsh at times.
Wishing you best of luck.

[bivenator]

It is devastating, I am sorry to hear of your plight. Insurance will not cover this type of disaster? The US has a federal program for flood insurance, suprised if Canada doesn't as well. Best of luck.

[LakeCleElum]

All you can do at point is dump truck loads of rock and stumps into the river. My friend did this to save his home. He had some big issues with Gov't agencies after the fact.......Good luck....Friends own land on the Kettle on the the US side of the border......

[sc_rufctr]

It breaks my heart to see these pictures. Every night we see the US flooding on the news.

Dumping some big rocks in the right place sounds like a good idea. ^^^

How could your local government have a problem with that? Have they done anything to help you? ...

[wdfifteen]

Sorry to hear it. It has to hurt to anticipate the slow destruction of your home.

[1990C4S]

No sandbagging operations under way? No military help?

[Two Rivers]

In 2008 we lost our house to the flood in the Midwest. Its not fun having everything you own go to the land fill. The water is so toxic most things have to be trashed. I feel for the folks seeing the water rise and hope they stay safe.
Its amazing what the power of water can do.

[lonewolf]

Originally Posted by 1990C4S

No sandbagging operations under way? No military help?

sandbags are not much good when you have 80x8ft trees coming down the river.
try to stop one of those .
the ground water is 8ft above my basment floor and I'm just starting to see dark patches on the floor so the water will hydraulic in pretty soon.

We all had our pow wow on the street this morning and agreed ,this is a bad one.

[tevake]

That is such a bummer, Bro. Being close to the water is so nice until it isn't. We are hoping the best for you and your neighbors.
Richard

[johnco]

all the water from up north runs thru down here before emptying into the gulf. I'm located in the Atchafalaya Basin and the Atchafalya River runs thru town. The Morganza Spillway helps lower the Mississippi River and runs off thru the Atchafalaya Spillway and some of the gates have been opened. it's not too bad yet, but it will be soon

[kach22i]

Is there any way to move the house or at least raise it up?

How many friends do you have?
Banging the Drum: October 2010


The big tree thing is a worst case, just so many trees of that size and so many things they are bound to hit. Take your chances and raise the house off it's foundation.

A house-raising experience

Just about any house, no matter what size or condition, can be raised off its foundation

[pwd72s]

Originally Posted by tevake

That is such a bummer, Bro. Being close to the water is so nice until it isn't. We are hoping the best for you and your neighbors.
Richard

Huge plus one on that!

[Zeke]

I didn't see the origin of that quote about raising the house, but like he has time for that. And if 80 foot trees 8 feet in diameter are headed in lonewolf's direction, there isn't a lot that can be done except to hope for the best.

Which we do.

[RWebb]

if there is room, time enuff, and you have a tractor, throw up a levee - some have put plastic traps on the river facing wall and used sandbags to tie them down

good luck

[patssle]

Saw video on the news yesterday of one guy wrapping his metal building in plastic, then sandbagging the bottom.

Success probably depends on how high the water goes, that's a ton of pressure if it gets too high and the metal will cave in.

[azasadny]

I'm so sorry to hear about your home and your neighbors. Terrible what you folks are going through...

[lonewolf]

I'm 100yards away from where one river joins another .both fed by ski hills with record snowpaks.
We have had a very cold spring .both mountains are still geting snow. the rivers height right now is just local runoff and from the big rains we have had here over the month.
We have not had two 80degree days in a row even but we are so late in the year now and after yesterdays deluge we are about to get the first week of 70-80+ weather . What we are all really afraid of this year is that all the mountain snow will melt so fast that the river won't handle it .With the river only a foot away now from coming right over the properties a big week of heat is just what we don't need but it's inevitable. . 13 years living on the water you go through the high water anxiety every year but this year the way the weather has been brutal and with record snowpaks all over the province it's a perfect recipe for disaster and i'm just one of many areas that will be on the news for flooding.
Sandbags.emergency people dropped them off but went to people up river in a more desperate at the time situation.
On the weekend , some of us floated a 20x5 log up against two big trees to try to stop just some of the direct flow from hitting the other river. but now the main river (the kettle) is so high that it's now flowing overtop of Rock Creek which is now it's own raging river.You can hear the boulders rolling down. can't get near there today. So it is slowly changing the direction of the river coming straight at my neighbours yard .Right now the kettle is pushing about 60ft of rock creek sideways. if it gets higher and goes over the last burm it will be pushing on over 100yards of rock creek. Then it will go through their place ,then through mine and go right up the street and join the river again .basically we are on the curve of the river and the river is straigtening out, could go right down the street and then rejoin itself again. Lousy thing is some of the old timers show you where it went back in the big one and if it did it once then it can do it again. To be honest I always found it wise to always listen to the older folks.learn from the wise but it is their nervousness that has me the most uneasy. For the first time ever this one fella asked ,so how's your place? Everyone knows my place for the backyard and extensive gardens . He's never talked to me before much but he was telling me what to do.asking me if I had pumps etc which I do but at the same time the his friend said well if it starts to come over you better have those cars out of there and that's all he said.So when people that generally don't say much but have lived here their whole life say something ,I listen.. We have machinery working around but it's a pretty busy place right now. I have a 10ft fence that goes right ot the river that have have put 4x4x10 post braces along it . We are going to try to get something in my neighbours back yard to get some riprap down to the corner of the property but the ground is saturated and even walking there are some areas where I found my foot 8in under water all of a sudden. I can look down my well and the ground water is almost at ground level and the well is right now about 50ft from the rivers edge.. Right now my neighbour is not worried about the grass and we are going to put up a wall of rocks on the inside of the fence and angle it towards the river to hopefully direct it back or catch whatever is floating and it helps disrupt the strong flow . This is just if it hit's only the corner. there's a fine line between the rivers height and how wide it can get in an instant if it goes over the last burm. the burm is acctualy the wall of rock creek so no we can't make it higher. and right now the two rivers are only separated by about 20ft of land.

[pwd72s]

Does NOT sound good...Hope the snow melt is slow & the rain lets off. We had some pretty sever flooding here back in '64. As I drive out "river road", I recall it being covered in water then. Today? Lovely homes built below the level of the road.