#100yearflood

The week of the hundred year (or so) flood: 

On Sunday evening I went to free yoga with Heather. It had been a while, and, so it seemed, the release of toxins delivered me and my sinuses into a state of mucus inundation that lasted for the better part of a week. The next afternoon, the sky seemed to break open, causing hail, torrential rain, and lightening that managed to momentarily shut down the power in my office. I didn't think much of at the time. I found myself preoccupied with  the results section of a research paper I was writing. 

On Tuesday, feeling terrible but wanting to feel better, I went for a run up a boggy South Table Mountain. Once atop of the mesa, I looked north, and I could see the entire front range, which tapered off with those sleek, articulated flatirons that make Boulder feel closer than it is. Low, low clouds hovered over the mountains, but nothing seemed unusual.

As the week continued, my cold symptoms diminished, my research results were re-calculated, but the clouds didn't break.

The real bad flooding started on Wednesday. In counties all around me, lives were disrupted, but mine wasn't impacted in the slightest.

This flooding started the way we knew that it could.

Growing up, we would go camping above Boulder in a little town called Jamestown. Whenever we camped, my dad would leave the key in the ignition in the van back in the parking lot. "In the event of a flood," he would tell us, "we can get going as fast as possible." 

In my first semester of college, we took a Geology bike field trip down the Boulder Bike Path. We were told about the 100-year flood, and the teacher pointed out the Dushanbe Tea house, among other brave buildings built just feet from the creek's path, and said that it was in the floodplain and carried a high probability of impending destruction. 

When I lived downtown Boulder, I was acutely aware that I was in the floodplain. So aware, in fact, that when it rained, I would lay in bed and review my plans to tie a raft to my roof as means of a convenient (and exciting) evacuation. 

But then, finally, as the town of Jamestown was toppled, and roads were swept away, and people lost their homes and their lives, and the Boulder Creek continued to grow and take things out its path, my life in Denver was untouched.

And that's a weird feeling.

It was weird to be prepared for a disaster to hit -- knowing that it could happen tomorrow* -- but when the disaster finally did make its appearance, I was out of harm's way. It was weird to look at pictures and see terrible things, but the only tangible impact of this tragedy was a musty smell from the basement. 

The basement was wet, and there was a tropical feel in this otherwise arid place. The humidity was objectively high (typically, around here, comments about humidity are in the form of a question rather than a statement: Is it humid?). Water formed on the outside of glasses, and the car windows were fogged over from the inside. The succulents were plump from drinking in the air's water. The doors struggled to open and close in every room, because the floors had become so bloated.

Just as I was becoming aware of these benign indications that there was a lot of water in the air, President Obama declared a major disaster in Colorado, and the potential of wide-spread destruction continued to build. 

It was a weird, helpless feeling. 

This maybe a derivation of survivor's guilt. Or this emotional response could just be my ego crying out a little, and attempting to reframe this huge incident in terms it can comprehend. 

Dry in Denver,

Amy

I live in Colorado and right now, as I'm sure most of y'all know, things are insane. It rained for at least a full day and it was like a tropical storm outside of the tropics. Roads are ripped up, houses are flooded and some towns actually became islands - no one could get across the water, so we all watched in horror until the National Guard showed up and crossed the river, rescuing people. Talk about heroes! I'm fortunate enough to be safe and dry throughout the flood.

But I wasn't safe from the weather changing so much. These storms have been killing me since before it started raining and my new meds make me sick unless I have a full stomach. To be honest and blunt, I've been pretty miserable. But I got through it, well God actually carried me through it, I couldn't do that on my own. No way.

The odds are that this is just the beginning of another downward slide. With Lyme treatments you always get worse before you get better, it's just how things work. But it might lead to something beautiful and wonderful - getting better.