July 9, 2015    Lesson 4.1-Fluency Blog Day 9

Rain, Rain, go away come again when we actually need it!

For the past month, it seems every weekend or every other weekend, the James and Finley Rivers have raged and flooded everything. The streets of Ozark, Springfield and surrounding areas have flooded and many roads, including some of the highways have had to be closed and people have had to be rescued from the high waters. It’s really pretty scary when you get down to it.

My family and I here spend most of the day yesterday in concern because of the flooding further south in Cassville because my grandmother, other family and many friends live down there. It has been my home all my life.

Cassville, like Ozark and Branson, has a lot of hills in town. Flat Creek runs right through the middle of town.  It’s not like when we get heavy rains it doesn’t get up in the drain ditches, but very rarely anything near like what happened yesterday. They said on the news they had over 7 inches of rain in less than two hours. The town started flooding in just matters of minutes trapping people all over town. The sheriff’s department put out warnings that the whole town was closed down and do not come there. Many of the pictures that were shown on the news were only a block away from my grandmother’s house. Friends and family flooded Facebook with pictures they or someone else had taken. My folks said they remembered the year I was born Cassville and that area flooding big time, but not anything like it did yesterday.

When something like that happens, the feeling of knowing you are so far away, can really keep your mind preoccupied leaving you feeling uncertain and helpless, knowing you can’t go down there, and even if you could, what were you going to do…grab a bucket…what good would that do. All you can do is say a prayer that everyone will be ok, and wait it out until the water goes back down. 

At least we were fortunate that my grandmother’s house sits just high enough that the water didn’t get into her house. We finally got hold of the rest of the family and some close friends and all was good with them too, thank God. But man, that whole town is a mess and there are a bunch of people and businesses that lost a whole lot. I really feel bad for them, as well as all of the other areas that flooded.