>THIS IS AN ON-GOING (IF INFREQUENTLY UPDATED) JOURNAL ABOUT OUR LIFE ON AN ISLAND--ON ISLAND TIME--WHICH BEGAN WITH THE BUILDING OF OUR DREAM HOUSE.
>EACH NEW ENTRY IS POSTED ABOVE THE LAST, SO TO BEGIN AT THE BEGINNING...GO TO THE END.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Snow, Rain, And Now Floods

The same thing happened about 10 years ago. First we get too much snow in a part of the country where we rarely get snow. Then it warms and starts raining, triggering landslides, avalanches in the mountains, and flooding in the lowlands. When it happened 10 years ago it also triggered a neighborhood lawsuit in which the people who lived on the beach sued the people who lived on the bluff above, citing negligence that caused a landslide which not only wiped out the road down to the beach, but damaged homes when the slide rammed into them. We were lucky not to have been included in the lawsuit since our portion of the bluff did not collapse. On one of the other islands several people were killed inside a home that was hit with a sudden landslide in the middle of the night.

The rain is not heavy here, but I heard on the radio that in Seattle and areas farther south it is pouring, which will surely mean trouble. At the very least the rivers will flood, and at worst it will cause more landslides. Some of the most expensive real estate in Seattle was rendered uninhabitable when the soil shifted and people had to evacuate their homes overlooking Elliott Bay.

Although worrisome it's not as dire as the Californians who live with the constant threat of earthquakes.