the rain is pure as the rain is sure

Quick!

Name the awesome band who sang that song!

Living on the east side of the state we're used to wind and snow and hot summers.  It rains here, but not in huge quantity like the west side of the state.

Friday night it rained.

Then it stopped.

Started raining again Saturday evening and didn't stop for 24 hours.  Big, humongous drops of rain.

We're definitely not used to that.

Sunday was Stake Conference.  How they do it here since our Stake is spread out, we have a morning session where we live, then an afternoon session at the actual Stake center 45 minutes away.  When we awoke to this:

we knew it wasn't going to be a normal Sabbath Day.

Aaron was taking a friend over to the airport later that morning, so I left with the kids to go to the meeting. By this time, word was spreading about the seriousness of the rising waters in the valley and our Stake President stood up before the meeting even started and asked the able bodied men to leave and go help with the sandbagging efforts.  Eventually, the meeting was cut short on account of hardly anyone left in attendance.  And members from the entire Stake were called upon to help.  Them waters were out of freakin' control.  Volunteers worked in the rain and wind from about 9 a.m., well into the evening.  Ox in the mire, ya'll.

This is the river that formed on the backside of the apartments.

Water, water everywhere!!

Totally awesome when the sprinklers came on to help out.

Ankle-deep water on the sidewalk.

Futile attempt to stop the water from going under our building.

Behold!  The power of the humble sandbag!!

A Great Wall of Sandbags was formed across the street to try and divert the water back into its irrigational((new word!)) boundaries.

Ten minutes after the bags were in place, the river was already downgraded to creek status, at least on this side of the tree line.  On the other side was white water rapids. 

Some of the trucks involved with helping out.

This was Sunday evening:

And this was yesterday morning:

By evening time on Monday, the water was back to normal, at least near us.  There are still places where the flood waters are high and they have no power.  And with the higher temperature we're expecting this week in the mountains can only mean more flooding could be coming our way.  Bring it, Mother Nature.  We have an arsenal of sandbags at the ready.

Oh, these were the opening and closing songs they had picked out to sing at Stake conference.  Somebody knew what was going to happen.