Winter in the Valley

So, now that the Holidays are over, usually the weather kicks it up a notch around here.  We usually get a overnight dusting of snow sometime during January or February.  Well this year, thanks to La Nina, we got a little more than a dusting of snow.  We got three days of very wet snow, then 3 days of rain, all in one week.  We woke up Sunday morning to snow on the ground.  The weather prediction had told us it would happen, but there was a few inches on the ground.  

The coffee shop I manage, Coffee Culture Annex, and our Subaru on the far right.

 I ended up having to work that afternoon because one of the girls got stuck in Roseburg and wasn't going to make it back.  Before I had to go in, Dave and I drove up to Fitton Green to see how well the Subie handled the deep-ish snow.  By the way, it is KICK ASS to have a Subaru in weather like this... it was like she was made to play in the snow.

The parking lot and trail head at Fitton Green.  The butt of Subie in bottom right corner, the only other car there was also a Subaru!

Monday and Tuesday we got some nasty snow, then rain, then snow mixed with rain.  Snow by it self: that's fine.  Rain by itself: that's cool too... but both of them together makes for a dangerous time.

The path to our front door from the drive.  So pretty!

 Then, on Wednesday afternoon, the rain came.  And it didn't want to go away.  It rained hard all night.  Usually when it rains, the temperature goes up too... so all that snow melted at the same time at the torrential downpour came down, causing MAJOR flooding all over.  A family in Albany got swept away in their car in a grocery parking lot.  The dad and the older child got away, the mother and baby, not so much.  It took them a day or so to find the bodies... so scary!  Well, for those of you who don't know the coffee shop well, we have a creek right next to us.  In the winter, there is maybe a foot or so of water at the bottom of a ditch about 7 or 8 feet deep.  But on Thursday morning it looked like this...

Sequoia Creek 

 It got about 6 inches from the top of the ditch.  Those of us that were working, were keeping a very close eye on it.  (Barista moment: Customers coming through the drive-thru would look over and panic "Ohmigosh that water is really high!  Did you see the water over here?!"  Yes, of course we did.... Oh and my favorite by far was getting yelled at by a grown man in a pick-up truck because our menu board where our customers order over the speaker doesn't have an awning and he was "getting rained on!"  It was as though he was being exposed to acid rain.  News flash friend: we live in Oregon.  We get an average of 40 inches of rain a year... it's going to be raining and you will get wet.)

We had sandbags bought and placed strategically so that if the creek did crest, we were ready.  Many of the creeks and rivers in the area were flooding streets, homes and schools.  I even heard about kids boogie boarding down Conifer Drive, which was under about 3 feet of water.  (Note to readers: one of the things we learned in the College of Public Health is that flood brings disease.  There is poopy in that water!!!!  Not just that, but parasites.  Ew!  That water is not treated or safe by any means.)  OSU and the Corvallis School district canceled classes on Friday for precautionary reasons. (Lucky for Dave!)

But then, the rain eased, and the city of Corvallis guys came out and did something (I heard something about drilling a hole somewhere... I'm not really sure.)  The creek dropped a few feet by noon.  But we are still keeping a close eye out, because it is still raining, just not as hard.

The Creek from the drive-thru window at the shop.

Anyway, I feel lucky to be living in a nice, warm home up on a hill.  Hopefully all this rain means that spring will be less wet...

A girl can dream right?!