Life on the lane...

On early Thursday morning right after a 2am feeding I heard the strangest noise as I was drifting back to sleep. A cracking and rumbling noise. In my half comatose state I assumed I was hearing things. I turned to Zan and said "I think there was a landslide," to which he replied, "I'll deal with it in the morning." I rolled over and tried to get a few more hours of sleep, sure that I had been half dreaming.

Well unfortunately I was not dreaming. When I got up to take Ruby outside this is what greeted us:

 

I quickly ran back inside to tell Zan, and then hopped in the car to see if we could get off of the street. This is what I found:

The road was covered with a slide and two trees. Looks like my baby group won't be able to make it to the get together at our house. I quickly ran back to the house to call and cancel everyone coming over. As I was making phone calls I looked out the front window to the North and saw this:

4 feet of mud covering the roadway below. It certainly made the slide behind our house look small, and made me question at this point whether the Mayans were right. Was the apocalypse starting a day early?  Zan ran across the street to make sure that the little old man who lives there was ok. He started to build a barricade with old railroad ties to divert the muddy water that was still coming down the hillside like a river and going into his garage. At this point multiple neighbors came out to assess the damage. My Dad came down to help and had to hike in from way up on Picnic Point Rd to get to us. Luckily with his full rain gear from his construction business days he looked official enough that the County crew let him pass and climb up over the slide to get to the street without too many questions. Zan and my Dad worked the rest of the day diverting water from up on the hill, digging and climbing through mud up past their knees in the pouring rain. Leif and I spent the day looking out the windows, packing evacuation bags and being anxious.

The silver lining to all of this is the support and camaraderie we found with our neighbors. People we had never met before came out, and everyone pulled together to help find a construction company to clear the road that was covered that is not maintained by the County. People shared stories and insights of their 30-40 years here on Possession Lane. Sharing how they control slides on their property, as well as insurance plan insights. We will now be getting a DIC insurance policy. However, I find the name of this to be rather ominous and those of you in the medical field probably know why :)

At the end of the day we found ourselves safe and dry, and thankful to not have had more damage. 

"Life on the Lane: when you first move here you look to the west, in the winter you look to the east!" -Neighbor Matt