"Carl's Lounge" (Off-Topic Discussion, Traditional Knife "Tales & Vignettes")

Ironbut said:
We've been really busy the last couple days. Thursday night, a freak storm hit this small area, and dumped 8-9" of rain in two hours. There's a stream that runs across the back & down the side of my property, and there's a bend in the stream at my neighbours house behind me. A flash flood washed away the curve in the stream at his house, and his garage & shed and everything inside just disappeared. His new Subaru washed downstream & was trapped banging against the concrete bridge on the main road beside my house. It then went under the bridge & wiped out a bridge farther down on my other neighbour's property.

Meanwhile, rocks twice the size of 5 gallon buckets are washing into my lower back yard, because the creek bank was gone, and the water, rocks, debris were washing through my yard, and across all the neighbours yards across the road. The water was 6-8" deep and roaring through our yards at one point Thursday night.

Friday morning at daybreak, everybody in the general area showed up. There were two dump trucks, two large front end loaders, I don't know how many tractors, back hoes, and skid loaders here to help. The largest front end loaders and back hoes spent until 5PM moving rocks & dirt from my back yard to the original stream bank to stop the water from washing across our yards. It took all day yesterday & today to get the lane beside my house fully open, it leads back to four neighbour's houses who live back the lane behind me.

I have a three bay pole building & the flood bent in the lower parts of the garage doors, and washed tons of stone & shale inside, surrounding our vehicles, lawn tractor, outdoor equip, etc. A couple guys with front end loaders worked & got my pickup free yesterday, and they got my wife's Jeep out today. Then they got all the rocks out, and leveled it out inside & in front of the building. It's usable again.

Everybody's basements flooded. Ours wasn't too bad, and the refrigerator, freezer, table saw, tools, etc all survived, but there's a bunch of mud to clean out. My son & some of his friends came up & got most of the mud cleaned out today. We're still drying it out with large fans, but can manage from here.

There's a large Amish community that's been moving up here into the mountains the past decade or so. I think every one of them has a new Kubota tractor, or a skid loader. They were all here yesterday working from sunup to sundown & some came back today to help with cleanup. Good people!

The main road out front of our house is open, but secondary the road, which is the back way into town is closed, because two bridges are washed out in the two mile stretch, and the road is washed out about 1/4 mile back from out house, beside the creek & the guard rails are just hanging in midair over the creek. The guy from PA DOT said it'll be months before the road is repaired, and it might just be closed permanently.

The lower half of my yard is still piled high with large rocks, and shale. The neighbors across the road ended up with all the smaller rocks, mud & debris. We got most of the immediate needs taken care of, and we're now getting estimates from contractors to haul away all that stuff. It's going to cost a bunch, and homeowners insurance won't touch it. The county emergency management came out, took pictures, and told us all to take pictures of any damage, get cleanup estimates & email them what we have. They said we may get some help from PEMA (PA emergency management agency), but they can't guarantee it, so we're not to get our hopes up. We all got that done. Now we wait.

Thank God we have people around here that show up unasked when something like this happens. All my neighbors have helped out when somebody around here has a fire, needs help in a blizzard, flood, etc. We just never thought we'd be on the receiving end.
Click to expand...
Holy Cow! That is a ton of damage. The destructive power of water is easy to forget about until you see it reshape your world in hours. I'm glad everyone came through alive, and I hope you are able to get things back to functional with relative ease. (And I hope PEMA comes through for y'all).
 
glennbad said:
Wow...just wow! I'm glad everyone is okay. Do you normally get flooding even close to that??
Click to expand...
Sorry. I just quit & came back in the house. I'm done for today. To answer your question. No. I've lived here for 26 years, so I'm a newcomer, but my neighbour behind me, whose car washed away has lived there for 58 years. Nobody around here has ever seen anything like it. We had 8 or 9 inches of rain in two hours late Thursday night, and the flooded stream just washed away one of the bends & rerouted itself through our properties, carrying with it all the large rocks, trees, and everything else you can imagine.
 
Back in the mid 90's I was a teenager, and remember a powerful summer rainstorm coming through. There was a big hollow back in the woods behind the house, and after the storm you could hear it just roaring for hours. Luckily that area was just undeveloped forest, other than some ATV trails. When I went back there on my 4-wheeler to check it out, it was completely unrecognizable. It completely changed the landscape of that hollow, trees uprooted and washed away, huge boulders everywhere.

Sorry for what you are going through. Even with many hands and machines, I'm sure the cleanup will take time.
 
abbydaddy said:
Holy Cow! That is a ton of damage. The destructive power of water is easy to forget about until you see it reshape your world in hours. I'm glad everyone came through alive, and I hope you are able to get things back to functional with relative ease. (And I hope PEMA comes through for y'all).
Click to expand...
Thanks. We all have the "must-be-done-now" stuff taken care of. We can slow down a bit now, but there's still an incredible amount of cleanup to do. We were in touch with our county emergency management guy who was here Friday morning. He said that someone from PEMA is supposed to come on Tuesday to talk to us. The guy from the county said, it would be nice if the state helped, but not to get our hopes up.
 
Last edited:
waynorth said:
A real Community!!!
Click to expand...
Absolutely! Friday, Saturday, and today, every time I try to thank any of these people, I just choke up. My neighbors & I are usually the ones helping others, so this is new to me.

My wife kept yelling at me to sit down & rest once in a while, but I could never think of sitting on my behind when other people, some that I don't even know their name, are out there trying to help me. On both Friday & Saturday though, late in the afternoon, it's like the main breaker just popped, and I just could not function any more. I'd come in & sit on my recliner, and immediately fall asleep for an hour or so, then back to work.
 
Last edited:
meako said:
It restores my faith in humanity when people team up and help in times of disaster.👍
Click to expand...
Yep. Absolutely! I mentioned before, there has been a large Amish community moving up here in the mountains the last 20 years or so. Contrary to what most people think, they're allowed certain types of powered machinery as long as it's business or farming related. At first, we local rednecks would kind of make fun of them among ourselves, about them not being "real" Amish, because it seems that they all have new Kubota tractors, new skid loaders, sawmills, etc. Top of the line machinery.

They pretty much keep to themselves. Until something happens, where somebody, anybody, needs help. Then they're right there. As many as needed. I think they're all members of the volunteer fire company.

Sorry about the rambling post again. But this is the first time since Wednesday morning that I've been able to sit here & actually finish my morning coffee. There's still an awful lot that needs done, but the immediate stuff is now taken care of.
 
Ironbut said:
Yep. Absolutely! I mentioned before, there has been a large Amish community moving up here in the mountains the last 20 years or so. Contrary to what most people think, they're allowed certain types of powered machinery as long as it's business or farming related. At first, we local rednecks would kind of make fun of them among ourselves, about them not being "real" Amish, because it seems that they all have new Kubota tractors, new skid loaders, sawmills, etc. Top of the line machinery.

They pretty much keep to themselves. Until something happens, where somebody, anybody, needs help. Then they're right there. As many as needed. I think they're all members of the volunteer fire company.

Sorry about the rambling post again. But this is the first time since Wednesday morning that I've been able to sit here & actually finish my morning coffee. There's still an awful lot that needs done, but the immediate stuff is now taken care of.
Click to expand...
I've been following your tragic account the last few days and can't imagine what that would be like to have to live through. I'm glad you and your family are OK and I hope you get some help from PEMA.
It's comforting to see how your neighbors and the local community came together to help each other.
 
Ironbut Ironbut i just saw this story after you mentioned it in the Buck sub-forum. I can’t even imagine such a tragedy and truly feel bad for you and Al your neighbors. We have had some floods out here over the years and I’ve seen homes and neighborhoods become uninhabitable because of it. All I can say is stay strong and I’m glad isn’t wasn’t any worse for you. Sounds like the best support you have is from the local community.
 
A barefoot Amish girl, maybe 8 or 10 years old from down the road & three of her little brothers just knocked on our door. They're three houses downstream from us & had some storm damage too. Her dad just had a dumpster delivered about an hour ago, and is sharing it with the neighborhood. If the stuff's too heavy, he'll come with his skid loader & pick it up.
This is incredible!
 
Ironbut said:
Here's the front of the pole building/garage
View attachment 2650750View attachment 2650752
And looking up towards the house. Again, this was Friday afternoon, after the creek was diverted back. Until then, it was running right down our lane, between my house & the white power co. trucks on the side road.
View attachment 2650753
Click to expand...
Fishing out the upstairs window? That’s wild. Sorry that happened 😢. It’s a time consuming event for sure. Glad everyone is safe.
 
AusLoX said:
Fishing out the upstairs window? That’s wild. Sorry that happened 😢. It’s a time consuming event for sure. Glad everyone is safe.
Click to expand...
One funny thing happened the first night of the flood.

About 11PM on Thursday night, when the waters were raging, I saw a strange rescue truck pulling a trailer with two large rafts go back the road beside my house. I found out the next day that it was the River Rescue Unit out of Harrisburg, which is about 45 miles away. Somehow they got a call for the rescue of a lady who lives about 1/4 mile back the road from us. They parked on the road in front of her house & were unloading the rafts when she saw the flashing lights from her bedroom window She went downstairs to see what was going on. They were just getting the rafts off the trailer to conduct a search for her. She told them to go away, she was going back to bed.

We still haven't found out who called 911 for this "river" rescue.
 
Ironbut said:
We've been really busy the last couple days. Thursday night, a freak storm hit this small area, and dumped 8-9" of rain in two hours. There's a stream that runs across the back & down the side of my property, and there's a bend in the stream at my neighbours house behind me. A flash flood washed away the curve in the stream at his house, and his garage & shed and everything inside just disappeared. His new Subaru washed downstream & was trapped banging against the concrete bridge on the main road beside my house. It then went under the bridge & wiped out a bridge farther down on my other neighbour's property.

Meanwhile, rocks twice the size of 5 gallon buckets are washing into my lower back yard, because the creek bank was gone, and the water, rocks, debris were washing through my yard, and across all the neighbours yards across the road. The water was 6-8" deep and roaring through our yards at one point Thursday night.

Friday morning at daybreak, everybody in the general area showed up. There were two dump trucks, two large front end loaders, I don't know how many tractors, back hoes, and skid loaders here to help. The largest front end loaders and back hoes spent until 5PM moving rocks & dirt from my back yard to the original stream bank to stop the water from washing across our yards. It took all day yesterday & today to get the lane beside my house fully open, it leads back to four neighbour's houses who live back the lane behind me.

I have a three bay pole building & the flood bent in the lower parts of the garage doors, and washed tons of stone & shale inside, surrounding our vehicles, lawn tractor, outdoor equip, etc. A couple guys with front end loaders worked & got my pickup free yesterday, and they got my wife's Jeep out today. Then they got all the rocks out, and leveled it out inside & in front of the building. It's usable again.

Everybody's basements flooded. Ours wasn't too bad, and the refrigerator, freezer, table saw, tools, etc all survived, but there's a bunch of mud to clean out. My son & some of his friends came up & got most of the mud cleaned out today. We're still drying it out with large fans, but can manage from here.

There's a large Amish community that's been moving up here into the mountains the past decade or so. I think every one of them has a new Kubota tractor, or a skid loader. They were all here yesterday working from sunup to sundown & some came back today to help with cleanup. Good people!

The main road out front of our house is open, but secondary the road, which is the back way into town is closed, because two bridges are washed out in the two mile stretch, and the road is washed out about 1/4 mile back from out house, beside the creek & the guard rails are just hanging in midair over the creek. The guy from PA DOT said it'll be months before the road is repaired, and it might just be closed permanently.

The lower half of my yard is still piled high with large rocks, and shale. The neighbors across the road ended up with all the smaller rocks, mud & debris. We got most of the immediate needs taken care of, and we're now getting estimates from contractors to haul away all that stuff. It's going to cost a bunch, and homeowners insurance won't touch it. The county emergency management came out, took pictures, and told us all to take pictures of any damage, get cleanup estimates & email them what we have. They said we may get some help from PEMA (PA emergency management agency), but they can't guarantee it, so we're not to get our hopes up. We all got that done. Now we wait.

Thank God we have people around here that show up unasked when something like this happens. All my neighbors have helped out when somebody around here has a fire, needs help in a blizzard, flood, etc. We just never thought we'd be on the receiving end.
Click to expand...
I'm glad you're in one piece sir, but sorry for all your troubles 😟 Glad you have such great neighbours 🙂 You certainly have nothing to apologise for with this account, it's an incredible piece of writing 👍👍
 
I'm not buying the forum knife, so I have to be careful how much I buy with all the money I'm saving.
Woodchuck trap, vintage Kauhaava puukko, blowgun (fed up with trying to make my own), and now a Knives of France Lacroix queue de poisson. I'll stop there.
There are only three queues de poissons left; I wonder what color I'll get.
 
screened porch said:
There are only three queues de poissons left; I wonder what color I'll get.
Click to expand...
Stephane is on it.
I'll get the blue one, which is the spearpoint version of this:
5oL6YbH.jpg
 
Ironbut said:
I just realised the date. 58 years ago today, at the ripe old age of 17, a bus delivered me to Parris Island, SC for Marine Boot Camp.
Sheesh! I'm old.
Click to expand...
I'm old too!
This reminds me of a story about my trip to Lackland AFB for USAF basic training in January of 1971. Our group got on a plane in Syracuse, NY for the flight. There was a friendly stewardess who was chatting with us and asked where we were headed. We told her and she said her brother had been in the Air Force and really liked it. There was another group of young men on the plane that she chatted with later. They told her they were headed for Paris Island for Marine basic training. She said she felt sorry for them and wished them good luck.
Funny the things you remember...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top