From a WET WET Tennessee

Not sure if you all know, but I live in Tennessee, and we have some 'water' problems as of late.

I was up in Nashville helping out some folk we know, and delivering some water/food stuff for them, and one thing HUGE difference between this and Katrina was that nobody was waiting on the Government to come help them, these good people rolled up their sleeves, got their boats out, and started saving people, and are now starting to clean up and not complaining about it. It happened, its over, time to move on.

I heard quite a few say "obama did not come to see, and we do not care, tell him to stay in DC and keep screwing that up". These folks are good people, and it is on their backs that this country runs on, but it is on their face that this country shits on. damn shame huh?

I live in Eastern Tn, so we only got 5 inches (normally that would be a LOT, but all things considered, it was not).

I know how those people feel. My mother had a house along the Neshaminy Creek in Bucks Co. Pa. Every time there was 4" of rain north of us we would get flooded. 7 times in a 3.5 year span. Finally said fuck it and got out of there.

Creeks are a good thing provided they staty outdoors where they belong...

That's why I live on a lake now instead of a creek. Running water always has the possibility of rising. The hillier the country the higher they will rise.

We have a creek near our house, right on our property.

We are about 13-14 feet above that creek. Twice it has gotten close, so we finally devised a way to build a 6 foot straw/dirt wall. Eseentially, we stacked Straw bales, that were very tight, stacked them 4 bales high, and drove Rebars thru each stack on the ends.

We did this for a 1 acre piece of land. Then we brought in loads of dirt, and used the straw wall as the outside wall, and sloped the dirt towards the house on the inside.

The grass is startign to grow, and we planted a lot of comfrey and such on the slopes. This last rain storm gave us enough rain that the creek actually rose to the very bottom of our new wall. This water woudl have not reached the house probably, but it was good to note that no water did get thru the wall, and the wall will only get better as time goes on.

not sure if 13 inches would have put the water over that though, I think it might have, but we at least avoid any rain that is under 10 inches, which is almost all of them.

A lot depends on how many hills are near you C&W. Back in the 70's there was a hurricane that dumped about 8" up near Scranton and Wilkes Berry, The River rose over 75' and floated caskets out of a cemetery that were there since the 1800's.

Well, all of East Tn is a 'hill' but I live at the bottom of one hill, the rest of the area around me is rather flat.

There are quite a few variables surrounding our flooding issue, but how dry the ground is important, because this winter we had so much rain and snow, that when it rained 2 inches, we would get water out of the creek.

5 inches did not come out hardly at all though. Again though, I am rather high above the creek, and have a 6 foot wall of dirt surrouding my house and about an acre or so of land that we have a shed, Milk House, grain storage, tractors, 4 wheelers, fruit trees and bushes, etc. If it comes up the 14 feet, and over my wall, then yes, I am screwed, but my creek tends to hold on pretty well.

There is another creek in our county, which my empties into that floods all the time though. I mean, 1 drop of rain, it floods.

it rose OVEr 75 feet? yikes, that seems almost impossible. Even in Nasvhille, it rose only 12 feet over flood limit, and they got a lot more than 8 inches.

Id rather not think about the rain right now, this is a tense time of year for us...lol

We ahvesome large slopes in the front of our property that we move the Cows, sheep, pigs and such up to if we THINK the rain will be a problem.

I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings but we've got rain here in NE Ok this weekend which means you'll get what's left Monday or Tuesday ...

The arthritis is telling me it isn't going to be good.

We do not always get what you guys get there. You have to watch the Gulf Stream, and sometimes it picks those storms up over Western Tn and middle Tn and shoots them north.

Just like the floods, we were suppose to get the full brunt of that thing, but the Gulf Stream saved us, and instead pushed it north of us into Kentucky.

Western Tn and Middle Tn though do get a lot of what you get without fail, but we tend to avoid half of it.

I looked at the rain outlook for this week, it coudl be a rough week, but a lot of 30% chances, except this weekend, I saw some 60% stuff showing, but it is early, and I can cross my fingers.

C&W, the flooding north of you in the heart of Appalachia can be very quick and get very high. the more vertical your terrain and narrower your bottom lands the worse it can be.

We have a lot of hills around here, not as much Mountains, they tend to be more east of here.

btw, this area is consdiered Appalachia, not sure where the 'heart' of it is ..lol

When I think of the Heart of Appalachia, I think of West Virginia and Eastern Ky.

The center of Appalachia is generally considered to be West Virginia. Used to be coal country but most of the mines played out several years back now most of the jobs are govenment since there best known senator managed ot move a lot of DC's functions up that way when ever he could.

If you live in a place that can possibly be flooded keep plenty of water proof bags around to store your valuables that can be ruined by water. Store them high. If you have a basement put everything on wheels in order to get them out quickly. Clothes you are not using (seasonal) store in those new vacume packs, they take up little room and are obviously water proof. For your well, if you can use a submersable pump, obvious reason. When the power comes back on you'll need it for hosing the house out.

Can we be flooded? yes. This past year, it was the wettest in TN history, and it never touched the house.

However, there has been floods in the past that would have put the house 2-3 feet under water, so we went with teh 6 foot walls.

A lot of place around here used to flood when I was a kid. I lot of flood abatement has been done around here and now we seldom get floods and what we do get is generally just minor street flooding. A lot of the bedroom communities are still flood prone though.