Washed Out

This has been an exceptionally wet fall for south Arkansas. Our unofficial rainfall in September was more than 20 inches. October surpassed that. The weather between noon Thursday and noon yesterday brought torrential rains, high winds and spawned several tornados. Thank goodness we didn’t have a tornado at our house, but we sure did have the rain! By my estimates, more than six inches.

Fortunately our pond is well constructed. The levee which surrounds the west side, and is also the road to our pasture, has a spillway built into it along with two overflow pipes. Actually, I think there is a third pipe with a valve on it for draining purposes, but it stays closed. The road from our house forks once it reaches the pond. To the left is the equipment shed, the right leads to the pasture. This is where we had our troubles. I wish I had taken pictures while there was still water rushing across the road, but I didn’t get down there until this morning.


Here’s the view of the road leading to the shed. The bucket on the right is as high as the water got.


The boat we use for fishing got washed down along with various other things. It makes my husband sick to see all the gravel that washed away.


You can see how the flow of the water flattened out the grass in its path.


Here’s a lily pad in the grass. Too bad its roots aren’t still attached. Ripping up those nuisances would have been a bonus!


This view is from the other side of the washout, looking back towards the road to the house.


I don’t think I’ve ever seen the pond this full. Many of the tops out of the dead trees broke off and washed to the bank, some clogging the overflow pipes. My husband said they were probably only draining at about 50% capacity due to this. He had to clear the pipes several times.


Here you can see a log he pulled up onto the levee. Water was starting to cross the levee some in this area, but not bad enough to do any damage.


Looking towards the east pasture.


You can make out some of the cows watching us. Fortunately my husband can still ride his 4-wheeler to the tractor in the shed in order to put out hay.

All in all, I’m quite thankful. It could have been so much worse, and was for many people. My husband is already noting ways he can improve things in the event something like this happens again. Let’s pray it doesn’t any time soon!