Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Two rivers run through it

Since mid-July the Matanuska River has been eating away at this property.  Sept. 21 it had filled the yard all the way around the house.  You can see the water level in the line along the lower wall.  Then the water receded and took most of the bank with it.  When this all started that house was reported to be about 100 yards from the river.
Took some flooding in the past few days, some of it almost threatening my home.  The Knik River, about a mile or so away decided to fill its banks to overflowing.  It's all in this photo gallery.


Friday, September 21, 2012

Fall weather: The gift that keeps on giving

Huge cottonwood went down between houses.  Difficult to get the whole thing in the picture.  Stump is visible to right and the tree extends off to the left. The visible trunk ought to give a reference point to the size of the tree. The first of the branches with leaves are at left.

First I need to figure out how to get that spruce on the ground
and then it becomes firewood. The downed cottonwood is between the camera
 and that house.
OK, so I went to sea for a while, writing in the process of storms at sea, the equinox, Alaska and oceans.  So what showed up?  Calm water, no wind and only a bit of rain.  Hardly what's to be expected this time of year in Southeastern Alaska.  But, while I was lolling away on a sailboat to the south, three more storms ripped through Southcentral, knocking down more trees, and raising rivers to dangerous flood levels.  As a matter of fact I read on line a news story that said, firefighters who were clearing blown trees from roads said they had seen several 50-foot cottonwood trees blown down in my neighborhood.  Unable to raise an alarm with anybody who might check the house, I raced home the following morning because there are several of those 50 foot cottonwoods in the yard, not to mention those dead spruce and a few more live ones in the 80-foot range.  Lots of branches down and one smaller spruce that got hung up in an alder on the way down.  In the neighbor's yard one huge cottonwood had fallen between our two houses, fortunately missing both.  There are trees down in other yards in the neighborhood as well.

Meanwhile elsewhere, flooding is rampant across this valley and three dikes are threatened with authorities now encouraging folks in Talkeetna (the closest town to the East Pole) to evacuate.  Flooding won't bother the cabin there as it stands on a hillside probably 300 feet above the river.

Several other streams in the Matanuska and Susitna valleys have overflowed and people have evacuated ahead of floods all across all three of the valleys here.  I live in the Knik River Valley which so far seems all right although that river is high, too.  Water has surrounded that house where the guest house fell into the river a few weeks ago.  Here's a gallery of photos from that experience.

Today we had sun  and calm but already in late afternoon it has started raining in Anchorage and the forecast is for at least two more storms to hit through here in the next 10 days.  Yippee!  I talked to a woman while I was taking pictures today who said she has lived here for 42 years and never seen anything like it.  I believe her.   We'll just have to hunker down and see what the new storms throw at us.

Just wondering has anyone read John Steinbeck's "Tortilla Flat?"  Am I going to have to find a chair leg and go out back to do battle?  It didn't turn out so well in that book. And, along that same line: If an insurance company refuses to pay for damages caused by an "act of God," shouldn't it then have to prove the existence of God?  But if there isn't one, who killed Danny?  Maybe there is no need for a chair leg, except to go after the insurance people.

Flooding at Talkeetna near the East Pole

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Your hearing better be good if you're going to throw broccoli

Point Retreat Lighthouse
Years ago a foggy day always brought out a reiteration of the theory of potato navigation.  It is for those days when you can barely see the bow of the boat, let alone any geography in front of you, from the wheelhouse.


That's when you send someone up to the bow with a sack of potatoes. At intervals of every few minutes, he throws one ahead.  When one doesn't splash, it's time to turn.



Here's when that is called for.  Years ago on another sailboat and not too far from where we are now, we were passing a place called Bell Island in a heavy fog.  The bell sounds as a warning to navigators that they are near a large pile of rocks. We could hear the bell but could not see the island.  The skipper decided he wanted a visual on it so we started inching toward the sound. In time we heard the low hum of the island's generator. Then we heard two men talking in normal voices and still could not see the island.  Now, that's too close. The potato would not have splashed.  We turned having no idea how close we came to the island. Later the same morning we came upon the cork line floating at the top of a commercial fisherman's net. The fog remained so thick we could not see the the boat that had to be on one end of it.  We turned and followed the net and in a short time we came to the boat.  That's how thick fog can get, and what brings up the idea of potato navigation.



As we left the harbor yesterday, we could see a bank of fog ahead of us. As we sat in the cockpit looking at it, I asked Mike if we had any potatoes. He knew immediately what I was talking about and returned that he never had potatoes on the boat.

"Well what have we got to throw?"

The only thing that came to mind was the broccoli we had brought along, some of which had huge crowns.  

Compared with a potato, broccoli was not going to make much of a splash and that's what brought the quality of hearing into the conversation.

Fortunately by the time we reached the area where the fog was, it had lifted and the broccoli survived until dinner time.

Monday, September 17, 2012

Kindred spirits at the opposite poles

Sent from my iPad

This was actually written during the season on the Ice. I was station manager at Palmer Station, Antarctica. The guy who wrote it had graduate degrees in Physics and Philosophy, but was working there as a carpenter! He went into fits of hysterical laughter when I, in passing, one afternoon just casually commented your quotation: “All this inertia is getting me nowhere.” -- Mike Rentel


ANTARCTIC PEOPLE
It takes a special kind of fool
To leave a home and job, or school
And pack a bag and grab a plane
And leave behind the 'safe and sane'
To go somewhere remote as Mars
With no McDonald's, T.V., or cars
No Exxon stations, no Pizza Huts,
No 7-11's - you'd have to be nuts!
To cast one's lot with a gang of freaks
Misfits, outcasts, grouches and geeks
Collectors of rocks, of eggs, of scales
Sewer repairmen, benders of nails
Far-fetched minds from far-flung places
Wild lights in their eyes, strange knots in their laces
Strange tastes in music, strange tastes in food
Strange hair; strange clothing; good God, what a brood!
What fool wants to go where those maniacs are?
Each one a stranger, each stranger bizarre
Who'd leave behind all that's comfortably known
For a place without streetlights, police, or ozone?
A fool, perhaps, with the mind of a child
Alert and curious, friendly and wild
Foolishly tickled to witness a dawn
Delighted when two other fools sing a song
Or perhaps a fool with a cynical bent
Who scoffed at society, got up and went
Broke off and ran from what others hold dear
Went as far as one can - and washed ashore here
Or it could be a fool of Columbus's mold
Miraculous worlds to seek and behold
More faith in tomorrow than any 'today'
No 'here' as delightful as getting away
Fools? Perhaps; but special past doubt
Children and sceptics from the wide world about
Gathered by chances as random as dice
And sent to this 'home for the way-weird': the Ice
And here to be tortured, ignored, and distressed
And find in each other the strength for the test
And find in these fools the best friends they've known
And see in themselves a fool of their own
So they bond together in a blissful way
Hopeful fools in their world for a day
As a part-time tribe, a fore-doomed race
Good friends? Total strangers? Both at once - what a place


Jim 'Thumper' Porter
24 February 1989
Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, Antarctica

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Carhartt sailors

Ghosting along, barely making way in a snowstorm through a narrow channel, reaching from buoy to buoy barely able to see the next one as we passed. Dressed in the winter clothing of choice in the North, the ubiquitous insulated coveralls in traditional light brown. One or the other of us once in a while had to step forward to shake the snow out of the shelf above the boom, snow wet and heavy enough to weigh down the mainsail.

Except for the temperature and the clothing and the snow and the latitude, the time was right for one of Jimmy Buffet's classic reverent songs about sailing. As a matter of fact the subject came up. It must be fairly easy to wax poetic about a peaceful voyage in the Caribbean. Let Jimmy and his tropical shipmates face a storm north of 60, facing into a biting wind, snow catching on your eyelashes, your fingers cold and almost frozen to the wheel or tiller. Yeah, that was it, Jimmy, put on a suit of Carhartts and join us on an icy deck in the sub arctic.

But we couldn't blame him for our current discomfort. Nor could we enjoy his sailing music. But minds wander in the cockpits of the world, even in the north and we got to discussing the idea of writing a song for him about those hardy folks who sail in snowstorms. We emerged from the snowstorm and the wind picked up and we sailed home but the idea remained and over time we came to call ourselves Carhartt sailors. At one point my partner on that trip showed me some verses she had written for a song on the subject. They have disappeared somewhere, but the idea remains.

Tomorrow I am rejoining the ranks of those sailors, sailing out of Juneau, Alaska, on a 41-foot sailboat, to spend a few days or weeks sailing and fishing for silver salmon and generally enjoying the fall storms of Southeastern Alaska.  It's the time of year to at least think of pulling on those Carhartts.

"... We're calling everyone to ride along, to another shore.  We can laugh our lives away and be free once more."

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Fall storms and winter warnings


 The wind let up and the sky cleared revealing a bright moon. Mist covered the dawn and when it lifted look what the storm had left on the mountain.  Then today, for the first time this fall, the temperature dropped below freezing.  And it looks like there is some heavy lifting in the forecast.

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Aftermath

At least in places the storm lived up to its billing.  I am not one to raise an alarm unless I can see the potential is real and with two lows gathering and heading east, it looked real.  The photo to the right was one from a member of the NOAA mesonet in Anchorage.  The National Weather Service lost power early and was unable to record much over the evening and night.  While it is not an official reading, the Weather Service had enough faith in it to post it on Facebook: a gust of 131 miles per hour.  There were several other reports of gusts of more than 100 mph from spots on the hillside above the east side of Anchorage.  Thousands in Anchorage were without power late into Wednesday. It was out about six hours here and I slept through it, so no big problem.

The last lily survives the wind.
Around here it didn't look like there was much damage.  There certainly was a lot of wind but nothing over 50 I don't think.  (Hint hint:  birthday and Christmas are coming and I would LOVE one of those weather stations like the guy who took that reading has).  Even the last lily of the year survived the wind.  That's it in the small picture.  A few branches fell into the driveway but none of the big trees.  I drove around the neighborhood and into town and saw where large branches had fallen across the roads and were cleared away by highway crews.  By the time I went by, one crew was clearing a branch out of the water where the salmon are spawning.  Off the highway a ways a few larger trees had broken and their tops fell to the forest floor.  Did they make a noise?

Shed has gone

See dust blowing off a gravel bar? River 20 feet from house.
I checked on the disappearing land along the river and another building has gone.  No one was around so I took a walk down toward the water.  Didn't stand too close to the bank though. The river remained high probably fed by heavy rains last night and appeared to be cutting into the bank still. The shed that was off to the left of the main house wasn't there any more.  Worse, by guesstimate the river was within 20 feet of the main house.  The photos show the situation as of today.

All in all it could have been a lot worse.  I didn't drive to the west over toward Wasilla where winds usually are stronger and more sustained so not sure what happened there.  I do know after wind storms like this the trees over that way are usually sporting new clothing in the form of plastic grocery bags.  (No lecture, just sayin')

Here's a NOAA collection of photos of damage in Anchorage.




Monday, September 3, 2012

'Squalls out on the (ocean), Big storms coming soon.'



Dark purple is storm warnings, light purple gale warnings, and behind those, two low pressure centers heading this way. FYI gale warnings mean winds 34-47 knots, storm warnings are 48-63 knots.  After that it's a hurricane.

There's a huge storm coming in from the west according to the Weather Service.  Here's the warning in our little area:

...STRONG WIND THROUGH THIS MORNING THROUGH THE KNIK RIVER VALLEY...
...STRONG WIND TUESDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH LATE TUESDAY NIGHT THROUGH THE KNIK RIVER VALLEY...

The forecast even warns people with high sail areas on their vehicles, like RVs and tractor trailers to stay off the road Tuesday and Wednesday. 

The local media is calling this just a continuation of the heavy weather Alaska has experienced for most of the year, but it isn't really.  As the autumnal equinox approaches it has been historically stormy on the oceans around the state.

Seeing the first of it on the chart over the Bering Sea brought up a flood of memories, not of storms I have experienced, but of listening to the single sideband radio while those folks on boats experienced extreme weather out on that water.

There was a night of several calls while I was crossing the Gulf of Alaska in the early 90s with reports of outrageously high waves and boats being battered and trying for shelter.  Once there was a mayday and constant communication with potential Coast Guard rescuers before a nearby crab vessel retrieved all aboard the foundering boat.  Reports came across of waves breaking out all the wheelhouse windows,  swamping the work deck, filling the lazarette and once a simple cry for help.  And there were some that were serious but sounded actually funny.

One captain reporting to the Coast Guard said he was locked in the wheelhouse and the engineer had locked himself in the engine room while angry crew members were running around on deck with knives.

Another one touched the heart.  We were tied up at Namu, British Columbia, on a Thanksgiving night waiting out a storm and trying to cook a turkey.  Out on the ocean a tug captain talked with his son ashore and listened while the boy described everything they had eaten for dinner that day.  It  was warming, yet sad and spoke to the loneliness and sacrifice of the mariner.

But, it's most often about the storms.

Well, the wind is blowin' harder now
Fifty knots of there abouts,
There's white caps on the ocean.
And I'm watching for water spouts
It's time to close the shutters
It's time to go inside.
Lyrics from "Trying to reason with hurricane season" -- Jimmy Buffett

This one sounds like it will be more than the usual around here.  Those folks who have been watching the Matanuska River eat their land away and take their buildings may be in for a new onslaught.

Even beginning now it is time, too, to think of those souls on boats in the big ocean.


Saturday, September 1, 2012

An update: You know you're going to miss me when I'm gone,


Well, to begin with that house finally slid into the river, but judging by this picture that's not going to be the end of the story.  The river has now eroded enough of the bank to threaten the main house on the property and another small building.  That house has been abandoned.  The river also is now threatening several other houses downstream.  Meanwhile the first building is lodged tightly against a gravel bar downstream with just the roof showing,  All told, the river took more than 100 yards of ground on this particular property and given the amount of rain we've had in the past couple of weeks it isn't going to let up any time soon.  The water isn't that far from the highway (that's the bike path right next to the highway in the foreground), though the highway is raised and perhaps better protected.

Here's the story in the local paper with some additional photographs.

Here is a Facebook page of a neighbor downstream whose property also is threatened.

Previous post

Best headlines ever

Naked pair fed LSD gummy worm to dog

Owners of a Noah's Ark replica file a lawsuit over rain damage

In Southcentral Alaska earthquake, damage originated in the ground, engineers say

A headline that could only be written in Alaska: At state cross country, Glacier Bears and Grizzlies sweep, Lynx repeat, Wolverines make history — and a black bear crosses the trail

Man kills self before shooting wife and daughter

Alabama governor candidate caught in lesbian sperm donation scandal

Sister hits moose on way to visit sister who hit moose.

Man caught driving stolen car filled with radioactive uranium, rattlesnake, whiskey

Man loses his testicles after attempting to smoke weed through a SCUBA tank

Church Mutual Insurance won't cover Church's flood damage because it's 'an act of God'

Homicide victims rarely talk to police

Meerkat Expert Attacked Monkey Handler Over Love Affair with Llama Keeper

GOP congressman opposes gun control because gay marriage leads to bestiality

Owner of killer bear chokes to death on sex toy

Support for legalizing pot hits all-time high

Give me all your money or my penguin will explode

How zombie worms have sex in whale bones

Crocodile steals zoo worker's lawn mower

Woman shot by oven while trying to cook waffles

Nude beach blowjob jet ski fight leads to wife's death

Woman stabs husband with squirrel for not buying beer Christmas Eve

GOPer files complaint against Democrat for telling the truth about Big Lie social posts

Man shot dead on Syracuse Street for 2nd time in 2 days

Alaska woman punches bear in face, saves dog

Johnny Rotten suffers flea bite on his penis after rescuing squirrel

Memorable quotations

The best way to know you are having an adventure is when you wish you were home talking about it." — a mechanic on the Alaska State Ferry System. Or as in my own case planning how I will be writing it on this blog.

"You can't promote principled anti-corruption without pissing off corrupt people." — George Kent

"If only the British had held on to the airports, the whole thing might have gone differently for us." — Mick Jagger

"You can do anything as long as you don't scare the horses." — a mother's favorite saying recalled by a friend

A poem is an egg with a horse inside” — anonymous fourth grader

“My children will likely turn my picture to the wall but what the hell, you only get old once." — Joe May

“Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.” — Ernest Hemingway

When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth. Kurt Vonnegut

“If you wrote something for which someone sent you a cheque, if you cashed the cheque and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented.”Stephen King

The thing about ignorance is, you don't have to remain ignorant. — me again"

"It was like the aftermath of an orgasm with the wrong partner." – David Lagercrants “The Girl in the Spider’s Web.”

Why worry about dying, you aren't going to live to regret it.

Never debate with someone who gets ink by the barrel" — George Hayes, former Alaska Attorney General who died recently

My dear Mr. Frost: two roads never diverge in a yellow wood. Three roads meet there. — @Shakespeare on Twitter

Normal is how somebody else thinks you should act.

"The mark of a great shiphandler is never getting into situations that require great shiphandling," Adm. Ernest King, USN

Me: Does the restaurant have cute waitresses?

My friend Gail: All waitresses are cute when you're hungry.

I'm not a writer, but sometimes I push around words to see what happens. – Scott Berry

I realized today how many of my stories start out "years ago." What's next? Once upon a time?"

“The rivers of Alaska are strewn with the bones of men who made but one mistake” - Fred McGarry, a Nushagak Trapper

Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stared at walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing. – Meg Chittenden

A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity. – Franz Kafka

We are all immortal until the one day we are not. – me again

If the muse is late, start without her – Peter S. Beagle

Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. ~Mark Twain Actually you could do the same thing with the word "really" as in "really cold."

If you are looking for an experience that will temper your vanity, this is it. There's no one to impress when you're alone on the trap line. – Michael Carey quoting his father's journal

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. – Benjamin Franklin

It’s nervous work. The state you need to write in is the state that others are paying large sums of money to get rid of. – Shirley Hazzard

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence -- Bertrand Russell

You know that I always just wanted to have a small ship to take stuff from a place that had a lot of that stuff to a place that did not have a lot of that stuff and so prosper.—Jackie Faber, “The Wake of the Lorelei Lee”

If you attack the arguer instead of the argument, you lose both

If an insurance company won’t pay for damages caused by an “act of God,” shouldn’t it then have to prove the existence of God? – I said that

I used to think getting old was about vanity—but actually it’s about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial. – Eugene O’Neill

German General to Swiss General: “You have only 500,000 men in your army; what would you do if I invaded with 1 million men?”

Swiss General: “Well, I suppose every one of my soldiers would need to fire twice.”

Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.—Gloria Steinem

Exceed your bandwidth—sign on the wall of the maintenance shop at the West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center

One thing I do know, if you keep at it, you usually wind up getting something done.—Patricia Monaghan

Do you want to know what kind of person makes the best reporter? I’ll tell you. A borderline sociopath. Someone smart, inquisitive, stubborn, disorganized, chaotic, and in a perpetual state of simmering rage at the failings of the world.—Brett Arends

It is a very simple mind that only knows how to spell a word one way.—Andrew Jackson

3:30 is too late or too early to do anything—Rene Descartes

Everything is okay when it’s 50-below as long as everything is okay. – an Alaskan in Tom Walker’s “The Seventymile Kid”

You can have your own opinion but you can’t have your own science.—commenter arguing on a story about polar bears and global warming

He looks at three ex wives as a good start—TV police drama

Talkeetna: A friendly little drinking town with a climbing problem.—a handmade bumper sticker

“You’re either into the wall or into the show”—Marco Andretti on giving it all to qualify last at the 2011 Indy 500

Makeup is not for the faint of heart—the makeup guerrilla

“I’m going to relax in a very adult manner.”—Danica Patrick after sweating it out and qualifying half an hour before Andretti

“Asking Congress to come back is like asking a mugger to come back because he forgot your wallet.”—a roundtable participant on Fox of all places

As Republicans go further back in the conception process to define when life actually begins, I am beginning to think the eventual definition will be life begins in the beer I was drinking when I met her.—me again

Hunting is a “critical element for the long-term conservation of wood bison.”—a state department of Fish and Game official explaining why the state would not go along with a federal plan to reintroduce wood bison in Alaska because the agreement did not specifically allow hunting

Each day do something that won’t compute – anon

I can’t belive I still have to protest this shit – a sign carriend by an elderly woman at an Occupy demonstration

Life should be a little nuts or else it’s just a bunch of Thursdays strung together—Kevin Costner as Beau Burroughs in “Rumor has it”

You’re just a wanker whipping up fear —Irish President Michael D. Higgins to a tea party radio announcer

Being president doesn’t change who you are; it reveals who you are—Michelle Obama

Sports malaprops

Naked pair fed LSD gummy worm to dog

Owners of a Noah's Ark replica file a lawsuit over rain damage

In Southcentral Alaska earthquake, damage originated in the ground, engineers say

A headline that could only be written in Alaska: At state cross country, Glacier Bears and Grizzlies sweep, Lynx repeat, Wolverines make history — and a black bear crosses the trail

Man kills self before shooting wife and daughter

Alabama governor candidate caught in lesbian sperm donation scandal

Sister hits moose on way to visit sister who hit moose.

Man caught driving stolen car filled with radioactive uranium, rattlesnake, whiskey

Man loses his testicles after attempting to smoke weed through a SCUBA tank

Church Mutual Insurance won't cover Church's flood damage because it's 'an act of God'

Homicide victims rarely talk to police

Meerkat Expert Attacked Monkey Handler Over Love Affair with Llama Keeper

GOP congressman opposes gun control because gay marriage leads to bestiality

Owner of killer bear chokes to death on sex toy

Support for legalizing pot hits all-time high

Give me all your money or my penguin will explode

How zombie worms have sex in whale bones

Crocodile steals zoo worker's lawn mower

Woman shot by oven while trying to cook waffles

Nude beach blowjob jet ski fight leads to wife's death

Woman stabs husband with squirrel for not buying beer Christmas Eve

GOPer files complaint against Democrat for telling the truth about Big Lie social posts

Man shot dead on Syracuse Street for 2nd time in 2 days

Alaska woman punches bear in face, saves dog

Johnny Rotten suffers flea bite on his penis after rescuing squirrel