Here comes the rain again...

Its flooding here in Ukiah, creating for some New Years excitement. We have been dealing with some rain storms for the past week and Mendocino County has been on flood watch. I was watching my nephew tonight when my sister and her husband called and let us know that they were flooded at their friend Todd Schappmire's place. They were able to get out and picked me up so that we could get some sand bags and help out with salvaging Todd's house. After filling some sand bags at the Airport, we headed down Perkins street and had to stop over by Burger King because the road was blocked. We talked to the officials and said we had some sand bags which the Fireman replied, "Well you got the right vehicle for it!". We then headed over to Todd's house cautiously, while water was leaking in to the truck. We finally got to the house and dropped off the bags and Todd said for us to get out while we could.

All the while we were helping Todd, my father was over on Babcock clearing out our home ranch because it was flooding. They got out our tractors and the classic vehicles, but were struggling to get out my brothers 1976 Camaro. So we decided to go over to the ranch and help my dad. When we got there the water was about three feet. We started out helping my cousin Pete clear out his house and moving stuff up high. His place was flooded a bit and he wanted us to move the fridge. The Johnson sisters were up for the challenge and we got in there and moved the fridge and then moved onto the garage. In the garage we salvaged some photo slides and old books and brought them home to the house. My sister and I started stuffing our pockets with the old slides and when we got home tonight we found out that they were of my parents engagement party 30 years ago. We also found an old picture of my Great Great Aunt Annie from the turn of the century. We were able to salvage the picture which was lucky for us, because the picture is very old and fragile and an important part of my family's history.

We then moved over to the waterhouse where we tried to move the old records up to higher ground. I dont know if we were able to salvage alot, but we got what we could get. It was a little crazy and really cold, but all that was on my mind at that point was saving my family history. We wanted to move next to the farm house because we didnt think that we were going to salvage alot of the boxes in the waterhouse because it was flooded so bad. When we were done, we decided to move into the house and started moving all the stuff that was low up on top of the desks. We finished the task around midnight tonight, and all we have left now to do is pray that everything will be ok. There is alot of damage, and the water is rising so I dont know if the house is going to stay dry. However, the ranch has been through alot of floods, and Im sure it will be fine. Tonight was a little worrysome and exciting at the same time. My dad said that this is the worse it has gotten in a long time. We'll see how it ends up tomorrow