Water levels

The danger of extensive flooding has dropped on the Slocan River in the past few days. I've been watching the government's flood watch website all week. Middle of the night on May 21, where the big spike occurred, was the night Chuck got called out by Search & Rescue to do evacuation traffic control. It has been very fun to watch the data.

Anyway, while the danger on the river has abated a bit, the lake levels are higher than they've been in 40-something years. I don't understand why this isn't playing out as rising levels on the river downstream, but there it is. Lucky for people in the river's floodplain!

The GRUBS garden is on the lakefront but normally the lake level is about 1.5 metres below the garden. Today it's about 15-20 cm! The adjacent hospital has dusted off its evacuation plan. The nursing home is on evacuation alert. Pumps are running full-time from the crawl space under the hospital and the main electrical box is only 30 cm above the water level. Fortunately there are concrete barricades up to prevent waves from washing up ... because there were some pretty big waves happening yesterday.

Here is one of our post holes at the GRUBS garden. The water level is holding steady over the past 24 hours, despite rain on and off. The kids' sprouts haven't floated away yet! The photo at the top is of the newly dug area which we were going to put a liner into (to keep water from exiting the soil) and make into a marsh garden. As you can see, the lake has seeped up through the soil. The kids call it "The GRUBS hot tub".

The forecast is for rain for the next 24 hours, but temperatures are also cooler, which bodes well. Here's hoping the kids' seedlings stay rooted where they are now.