January 7, 2009 flood

Today there has been major flooding of rivers and streets in Lynden, Bellingham and beyond. Some areas of Lynden are without power due to water getting into transformer boxes. Many streets in Lynden are closed due to water over the roadway. The girls' school closed at 12:45 so that all the kids could get home safely before the flooding got worse. It's been raining non-stop since it quit snowing and has gotten considerably warmer. I think it was 55 today. The warm temperatures of course caused a lot of snow melt, both here and up in the mountains, which is what is causing the river flooding. The street flooding is simply the rapid snow melt of the last two weeks combined with a lot of rainfall. I did make it home with the girls around 1:00 today, but I could not take either of our normal routes because there was water over the roads and I wasn't taking any chances. I was a little freaked out, too, because when I was at school picking the girls up, their bus driver caught me and told me she had heard that the road behind our home had flooded and that our neighborhood was flooded. I REALLY wanted to get home. Thankfully, I was able to work my way east and north and then south and made it home without having to drive over any water and our neighborhood was NOT flooded. The river is almost as high as it was in 2006, which set a record, and we didn't get water anywhere close to our home at that time. We did buy flood insurance after that, though. :) The picture above is of our neighbor's backyard - we are four houses down from them - farther away from the river. You can see how close the water has risen to their home and you can see the river behind the trees there. Usually you walk down two big hills to get to the river bank and then the river is down from there. In 2006 they had beavers swimming in their backyard, but I haven't heard that has happened yet this time! Anyway, Ed came home early and worked from home so that he wouldn't have to drive on flooded roads in the dark and so that he would be here if things did get worse and the neighbors began sandbagging garages or something. So far, the predictions on the river indicate that it will crest below the record flood of 2006, but only by about a half a foot...and it's still raining pretty hard. We'll keep watch and in the meantime, we'll continue to be thankful we have power, clean water, and flood insurance. :)