My life in appalachia the creeks out

Weather Underground report for Brasstown @ 7:25 p.m. October 14, 2014 – 2.96 in of rainfall.

The Deer Hunter leaves for work before the rest of us even get up. It was raining the proverbial cats and dogs when my alarm went off at 5:30 a.m. yesterday morning.

A good hour later it was still pouring the rain in Brasstown. The Deer Hunter called to tell me the wind was blowing and there was standing water all over the roads along with most of the leaves the trees has shed overnight. His orders were clear-the girls were to stay home…period. My directions-be careful, watchout for fallen limbs, and drive slow.

Chatter and Chitter weren’t too offended by their Daddy’s decree-you know who doesn’t like to stay out of school? I made it almost to the main highway before I had to turn around. The creek was out and rolling right along over the pavement-connecting two cow pastures with a river of muddy water.

Around lunch I gave it a go again and got to work just fine. A short 2 hours later the deluge of rain started again and this time The Deer Hunter’s orders were for me-if I wanted to get back across the creek before dark I better go-and go fast. I went!

I’ve never seen so much standing water on the road through Brasstown. There were literal ponds of water in various places and literal creeks running across the highway where I had never seen them before.

One newly birthed creek came down behind L.B.’s barn, parting ways as it partially crossed the highway-leaving the other fork to stream it’s way on toward Wilson Holler. Two of his horses were standing along the fence watching…I think they were as surprised as I was.

Tipper

Appalachia Through My Eyes – A series of photographs from my life in Southern Appalachia.

 

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18 Comments

  1. Prayers for all affected by the storms that went through, that everyone got through them safely.
    It was a very strange set of storms, felt tropical like a hurricane, but came from the midwest TX area, so it clearly couldn’t have been at this time of year.
    Mother Nature – always full of surprises, just like life often is.
    God bless.
    RB
    <><

  2. Tipper,
    On our way to our son’s home this morning the fluffy clouds that were breaking up were showing pinkish and red in some places. “Red sky at morning, sailor take warning!” I though how much more can it rain, after all the weather person said it was to be clearing on Wednesday…
    NOT…it has turned rather nippy and this evening has begun pouring again. Maybe not as hard and as much as Tuesday morning, but lots of puddles none the less.
    So, I suppose this rain is headed your way as well as the cool snap!
    The winds were strong here and part of the roads in the higher
    mountains were closed due to high winds and fallen trees.
    Never fear, it will warm up again and dry out again, soon I hope.
    Glad you folks are safe. A “toad-strangler” for sure in some places.
    Tell Jim now is the time to get hisownself a Turkey without the quiet hunt, call and gun…I’ve always heard that when it “gulley-washes” or “down bursts”, the turkeys look up to see what’s going on, open their “pecker lips to slurp a drink” and their brain and eyes fixate on the rush of water coming down and they surenuff drown!…I’ve heard tell of folks walking in the woods and findin’ their winter holiday fixin’s fer Thanksgiving, Christmas and even have meat leftover to eat with black-eyed peas on New Years Day!
    True, I swear on a rotten stump full of mountain stump water!
    Thanks Tipper

  3. WHOA TIPPER: I don’t know how you did it with all that water/warnings/etc. My ALMOST WASHED AWAY episode with flooding on our turnpike occurred several years ago but it still keeps me awake at night – when I recall that big semi truck stopping the flow of the creek so I could crawl out of my Mustang and get up in the semi. Sun will shine soon!
    Eva Nell

  4. We have these types of floods often. No inclines for the creek to rush down, but the creek still comes out of its banks and floods our roads and sometimes houses too.

  5. Tipper,
    I could hear the creek just a roarin’ when I left for work. When I got home it was even worse. The lower, larger culvert had over-flowed and stuff was all over the top I had never seen before. Thank goodness the concrete top held.
    My power was out for several hours here at the shop and I had
    to make coffee with my Colman
    Stove and a percolator. It felt
    almost like camping…Ken

  6. It is amazing how fast water can rise. We lived on a canal and every once in a while the water would start to rise And about once a year we had to leave until it went back down. Finally got tired of it and moved to higher ground. It was scary to step out into that water in boots and barely make it to the truck because it had risen so fast during the night. Glad you all are safe.

  7. “Outta its/her/the banks” is what we useta say when the creek flooded.
    There’s a branch less than 50 feet from where I sit; so far it has not got out of the banks, at least not since May, when we moved here. The step-daughter says that it doesn’t, not even in the spring, which is good news.

  8. I’m glad you are all safe. You beat us on rainfall by an inch but we had tornado warnings and funnel clouds sighted here in Burke County. The severe weather got here earlier than expected. The kids were all in school. All the schools in eastern Burke activated their emergency tornado plans. All these schools were on lockdown until the warning expired. Luckily this time no funnel cloud touched down but one was spotted over George Hildebran Elementary. That is the same area where a tornado hit on Jan 11th 2012. Another funnel cloud was spotted over Granite Falls which is just a couple of miles from my house as the crow (or tornado) flies.
    Me and Dusty headed west when the warning was posted and rode it out in Lowes of Morganton looking at tools. After it was over and headed back home Dusty said, “Dad didn’t a tornado hit a Lowes store a few years ago?”
    Yep! He was right. Sanford, NC April 16th 2011. I never claimed to be smart.

  9. That info sounds like one should enjoy finding indoor things to do at home. I’m glad the girls were safely at home and that you did not have any mishaps. We had nothing like that where we are in Caldwell county, but I did hear that some creeks and etc. did flow as you described. I’m glad the storm in left behind.

  10. Our creek was out too. I posted some pictures on Facebook. I called in to work to let them know I wasn’t coming because I was afraid our road would be washed away by the time I got back home. Thankfully, it didn’t. It was some weird weather yesterday.

  11. Now there’s an expression I don’t think I’ve heard up here in Northern Indiana; “The creek’s out.”
    Well, thank goodness you’re all all right. I worried about you folks and my brother who lives over the mountains from you and had the same weather system. But, all’s okay, even if the creek’s out all up and down the road.

  12. We had close to that amount here too and it was windy as all get out. The creek behind our house went from gentle flowing to roaring in no time. The boys are out of school this week and my wife was off work so we stayed put and cooked a big ol country breakfast and afterwards watched a family movie together. The wind died down and the rain was steady. It was a lazy morning and it was great!
    The air is clear and crisp this morning at 50 degrees. The leaves seem to be changing fast. We have had one frost but not had a killing frost yet.

  13. We have had flood watches and warnings for two days. They were predicting up to 4″ of rain for this area. I’m not sure how much we have had over the course of three days, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s more. The rain was supposed to be out of here last night, but we had heavy rain again this morning. The grass keeps growing like it’s spring.

  14. Tipper–October is usually the driest of all the months in the mountains but certainly not this year. What I think about Al Gore and global warming isn’t suitable for print, but maybe we are getting a “global wetting.”
    To my dismay, I didn’t avail myself of the opportunity to till the garden and hoe fall vegetables on Monday before the skies opened up here. It will be weeks before I have another chance, given how much rain we got yesterday.
    Jim Casada
    http://www.jimcasadaoutdoors.com

  15. Tipper, Did you notice how large the raindrops were?? Usually when it rains that hard the drops are small and sharp. The harder it rained the drops seemed to get bigger.
    Between the raindrops and the acorns falling on the deck it sounded like a war outside.
    One of those days I am glad to be retired and can stay in with a good book

  16. We had buckets of rain here in Black Mountain too but I don’t think it was quite as much as you got. It gets scary when so much water keeps coming down. Makes on think about the Ark and wonder if they have enough wood!
    You are fortunate to have a good man to go before you and make sure the way is safe.

  17. We had lots of rain also in Brevard and HEAVY winds. At one time, I thought there was a tornado at our place! It is dead calm today and, although the sun is not quite up, what sky I can see appears to be clear. I hear that there was a landslide down the road from us, but I haven’t been out to see if that is true.
    We are building a house, so I am going to go over later to make sure it hasn’t slid off the mountain! Only a few weeks until move-in time.

  18. Yea not sure how much we got but it was a lot ,glad to be home, we spent a week with our daughter in Children’s Hospital in Birmingham and I was afraid they were going to keep us up until the day of the storms and have to drive back through it, got rough here a lot of trees down, power out, but all has been restored now..

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