The first weekend in December, we started getting some rain, and by Monday morning, there was a cop at our door at 6 a.m. asking if there was any water coming into our house. We woke up to mass chaos that morning. Both routes into our neighborhood were closed, and I had to get out of the truck in my waders and move cones in order for us to get to the location we found sandbags. The water in the street was knee-deep, and the creek behind our house was overflowing about 30' into our neighbor's sloped yard. Luckily, our house sits pretty high up from the street, and Charlie, who lived here before us, leveled the yard with fill dirt. Had our yard been sloped as before, we would have had most of that creek coming up into our yard. I took the photos below mid-morning, when the waters were at about the mid-point. The water rose a bit after I took these, but by evening, it was receding. We had some fairly minor clean-up to do, especially compared to some other unlucky homeowners in our town. Justin said there was 5' of water in some of the houses in lower places than ours. Not too far from us was the Vernonia tragedy, and local businesses are still collecting $ to help the people recover. An OSP trooper friend of Justin's was dispatched to Vernonia, but couldn't even get there because of the water levels and damage to the road.
About noon that day, I mentioned to Justin that the lights had been flickering, and maybe we should get some emergency supplies just in case, so we headed to WalMart for water, candles, and some canned food. Along the way, we also found out where to get sandbags just in case, so we headed over and loaded up the truck bed with sandbags. When we got home, we noticed that the neighbor (in a brand new development) was having problems with water washing into/under his foundation. The husband had gone to work, so just the wife and kid were home, and neither of them spoke much English, so Justin and a couple other neighbors went over and just started sandbagging their foundation. We're pretty sure their crawl space must have been flooded, so we'll see how they fare in the coming months with drying out. We knew there must have been a reason they didn't initially build on that wetland, but eventually they got permits, and now all 4 of those new houses have water damage (3 of them are still un-occupied). Gunnar had a fun day with both of us home, and we baked cookies and Justin and I had hot buttered rum by the fire. The dogs were glad for an excuse to be in all day as well. Here are some photos of the flooding. Enjoy!
The creek over our back fence...
Notice the street full of water in the distance... that is usually the only way into our neighborhood. 
Knee-high water in front of our house. This was just a bit before the peak of the water levels near our house.
The sidewalk was completely submerged, and it only got worse. 
We survived, and didn't need the provisions or candles after all, but we're glad we were there to help save our neighbor's house.
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