MainstreaM
07-20-2013, 10:45 AM
The heavy rains Wednesday night along with heavy logging and rock gathering in the mountains caused a flash flood in South Pittsburg. My house got it on the north end of town and my shop got it on the south end. The house received damage to my AC and duct work plus the fence got mashed flat. Fortunately it was all fixable with only heavy duty cleaning and I moved my cars to higher ground before it got bad. Here is what I posted to the facebook.
The kids were on the front porch watching the lightening run through clouds in the distance when they came in and hollered, "daddy, there is a river in the street. That is when I took the first picture. Shed my clothes, put on swim trunks, and proceeded to wrestle my kayaks and trailer into the yard, move my cars behind the library, kill the breaker to the HVAC, and start gathering things to leave. When it reached my second step, which is about four feet deep out in the road, told the kids it was time to go. As I stepped out the back door, I flipped the main breaker off. When I stepped into the yard, it was about three feet deep. Brycen was in my arms whimpering as we made it to the truck, F350 superduty which sits pretty high thankfully. I pulled out and headed for second street which wasn‘t much better. Sat behind the carwash for a few minutes til I decided to go cause the water was still noticeably rising at this point. As we pulled out into second street, the water was at our back but still covered my headlights as I pushed through to a left on elm, ran the redlight, sorry SPPD. We then cautiously made it onto 72, up 12th street and onto my grandmothers on high school hill. From start to finish, this took about an hour.
My shop is a different story. 18 inches of water ruined all my cars except my first Quest which was on jackstands. Lots of parts and engines ruined, others just need a good cleaning. A layer of silt is over and in everything the water touched. Here is my FB post on it.
More breaking news from my Richard City property. A foot of water got in my garage ruining several engines and keepsakes I had stored in totes. Got a pull behind lawnmower, several cars floated around with about two feet of water in them, and anything, including concrete blocks, that was not tied or anchored is just gone. An old house trailer I use for storage is missing all it's underpinning and has the neighbors lawnmower, utility trailer, and boat lodged underneath it. One engineless car even floated far enough down to come to rest in the middle of the street, about 75 yards. I will be taking off this weekend to clean and salvage as much as I can. Good thing the old farm dump truck was parked at pop's pawn shop.
newslinks:
http://www.timesfree...n-came-to-town/ (http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2013/jul/13/when-the-mountain-came-to-town/)
http://www.timesfree...ittsburg/?local (http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2013/jul/12/flood-buries-south-pittsburg/?local)
I live on third street next to City Hall and across from the elementary school. You'll realize the importance of that after reading the news stories.
Pics from the night of, in chronological order.
First
http://imageshack.us/a/img96/3180/n0jy.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img585/4200/yy4t.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img16/801/yyz9.jpg
after moving cars
http://imageshack.us/a/img19/6449/m6ls.jpg
10 mins later
http://imageshack.us/a/img153/8176/zsq6.jpg
When I decided to go
http://imageshack.us/a/img855/6803/xr87.jpg
Kane
The kids were on the front porch watching the lightening run through clouds in the distance when they came in and hollered, "daddy, there is a river in the street. That is when I took the first picture. Shed my clothes, put on swim trunks, and proceeded to wrestle my kayaks and trailer into the yard, move my cars behind the library, kill the breaker to the HVAC, and start gathering things to leave. When it reached my second step, which is about four feet deep out in the road, told the kids it was time to go. As I stepped out the back door, I flipped the main breaker off. When I stepped into the yard, it was about three feet deep. Brycen was in my arms whimpering as we made it to the truck, F350 superduty which sits pretty high thankfully. I pulled out and headed for second street which wasn‘t much better. Sat behind the carwash for a few minutes til I decided to go cause the water was still noticeably rising at this point. As we pulled out into second street, the water was at our back but still covered my headlights as I pushed through to a left on elm, ran the redlight, sorry SPPD. We then cautiously made it onto 72, up 12th street and onto my grandmothers on high school hill. From start to finish, this took about an hour.
My shop is a different story. 18 inches of water ruined all my cars except my first Quest which was on jackstands. Lots of parts and engines ruined, others just need a good cleaning. A layer of silt is over and in everything the water touched. Here is my FB post on it.
More breaking news from my Richard City property. A foot of water got in my garage ruining several engines and keepsakes I had stored in totes. Got a pull behind lawnmower, several cars floated around with about two feet of water in them, and anything, including concrete blocks, that was not tied or anchored is just gone. An old house trailer I use for storage is missing all it's underpinning and has the neighbors lawnmower, utility trailer, and boat lodged underneath it. One engineless car even floated far enough down to come to rest in the middle of the street, about 75 yards. I will be taking off this weekend to clean and salvage as much as I can. Good thing the old farm dump truck was parked at pop's pawn shop.
newslinks:
http://www.timesfree...n-came-to-town/ (http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2013/jul/13/when-the-mountain-came-to-town/)
http://www.timesfree...ittsburg/?local (http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2013/jul/12/flood-buries-south-pittsburg/?local)
I live on third street next to City Hall and across from the elementary school. You'll realize the importance of that after reading the news stories.
Pics from the night of, in chronological order.
First
http://imageshack.us/a/img96/3180/n0jy.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img585/4200/yy4t.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img16/801/yyz9.jpg
after moving cars
http://imageshack.us/a/img19/6449/m6ls.jpg
10 mins later
http://imageshack.us/a/img153/8176/zsq6.jpg
When I decided to go
http://imageshack.us/a/img855/6803/xr87.jpg
Kane