Good Lord!

I have seen the 25-year plan for Pacific. In 25 years there will be no Pacific; it will be at the bottom of a man-made recreational lake ringed with McMansions, and somebody will make big money. Historic flooding in 2015, then worse in 2017, twice drowned half the town's housing and businesses; in 2017, the water topped the railroad tracks for the first time. The town was now floodplain and there was no two ways about it. Some residents FEMA'd and some didn't. When we're weary some developer will propose a glamorous lake in place of the sleepy little town and grease some pockets and make it so. But my mind was elsewhere when today I saw the little white country church lifted on pallets way up in the air, and thought, "Good Lord!"

I know buildings get raised and moved, a task I can't even begin to comprehend, and here I could watch it happen by hopping out of my car and telling a worker how amazed I was, and could I take a photo.

"Is the church being raised because of the flooding?" I asked, above the roar of the Bobcat. (Here, "bobcat" is both noun and verb.)

"Just like we raised the other houses around here," he said, and for the first time I looked around and saw that more than half the houses on the street, formerly ground-level bungalows, were now poised on new, high, solid concrete foundations -- ten feet high? twelve feet? More? The doors in front and back were now accessed with handsome new wooden staircases that one could tie a rowboat to. Those folks were staying put, flood or no. And my heart was glad.

LaBarque Creek Now, and Back Then

The photo with blue sky and snow was taken in January 2012, the other in March 2016. (It's the same leaning sycamore tree in both pictures.) The December 2015 flash flood here was like a flood of sand, creating new white sand "beaches" on the property, the result of gushing water, erosion and trees weakened and downed by invasive honeysuckle. Here's a brand-new "beach": Looks appealing, but where you see sand there once was water. I climbed a cliff to to get a bird's-eye view of just how far the flood carried sand over the creek banks and into the woods: When I first moved here in 1998 lavish white sand beaches lined the side of the creek where there aren't any now, and the water was deep enough to catch little sunfish. In 2001 and 2008 beavers built enormous dams just beyond the creek bend, and chewed down numerous nearby trees, destabilizing the creek bank on the near side; the flood of '08 destroyed the most magnificent beaver dam and greatest swimming hole I have ever seen. Beaver dam again in 2012. The current flood of sand means the creek is one foot deep. I never worry. Living here has taught me is that worry is all in the mind and utterly useless.

Lookie Lous

Click on the picture, taken this morning, for a bigger, better view.

Highway FF at Labarque Creek

I learned we're called "high-grounders," meaning that while our houses and businesses aren't flooded like downtown Eureka's and downtown Pacific, we're trapped on our high ground by flooded roads all around us. Forget Highway FF (pictured at left). Forget Highways F, W, O, MM, 109, 30, I-44, 141, or Business Loop 44; several square miles of our population simply can't get out.

So on this third day of staying home making the best of enforced vacation, quite a few of us high-grounders decided to take the kids to the barricades and see the disaster with our own eyes, or enjoy a walk down the car-less highways, or a hike at the high-ground conservation areas. I hiked one mile into the Glassberg Conservation Area to its overlook platform with its gorgeous vista of the Meramec Valley, facing toward Pacific. Spectacular flooding, and a view no TV crew can get at. Then I drove about 2 more miles to Highway FF's low point where the LaBarque meets the Meramec. I parked and took photos along with other disaster paparazzi, aka "lookie lous," all taking phone photos on our side of the highway and theirs. The twain shall meet when the water recedes, they say, about January 3. Regarding our Pacific and Eureka post offices (Eureka's P.O. moved to Ballwin), our bank, hardware stores, favorite restaurants and pubs, and gas stations that are still underwater -- how damaged they are and if they'll rebuild, we will have to see.

The Big River, which floods the Byrnesville Road toward House Springs, crested early this morning, and we might be able to get out that way in a day or so, but I want to be sure before driving there; my car is very low on gasoline. I'm sure there's some high-grounders low on insulin or something else crucial, but my neighbor and I are warm, dry, and safe. And what a blessing.

Happy New Year!