Nasty Weather

   The past couple weeks have kept me busy. It rained hard the first part of December then turned cold, raising hell with the intake screen up the mountain.

The intake screen for the power system is clogged up down there somewhere. I managed to get water flowing again and was only down for a few hours.

Then it warmed right up, and began to rain in almost biblical proportions. 

It kept on raining, and the creeks began to rise.

 The creek out front here began to flow chocolate brown so I knew sooner or later the intake screen would get clogged up with sticks and bark and junk being washed downstream. Which it did.

 The main river came up fast shortly after, there was a slide upstream and the river was full of debris going by.

Up at the intake pond my poor screen never survived the night.

It got torn off and thrown out of the pond, hanging up in some trees so I was able to bring it home to rebuild. A long section of pipe and custom made elbow is missing, it would have been smashed to bits down the falls.

Where the creek crosses the road out back it clogged up the culverts and washed half the road bed away.

 There were several helicopters going over today checking the roads and hydro towers, and flying food out to the small first nation communities that are presently on evacuation alert. Someone came around and did a head count of everyone in the valley last night, including here and several folks stranded at the hot spring. A young couple was out on a day trip and wound up on the wrong side of the washout yesterday, they ended up finding their way here and staying in the guest cabin until the roads are repaired. By the sounds of things it may take until Saturday before access to town is established from here, and theres still several river crossings and washed out areas from here down on both sides of the valley. I need parts to repair the intake, so until I can get to town the pelton-wheel is down and depending on the spiffy backup generator as described in a previous post for power, for a situation just like this.

Its started raining again, I'm sure there will be a part two for this post.