Watching the Sky

The flood waters in Corvallis are finally receding. I've experienced earthquakes, tornadoes, blizzards, OSU Beaver games and other disasterous situations, but this was my first flood experience and here's what it taught me: Water makes things invisible. That's the scary part. You never know how deep it is, you never know how hard the current is pulling and how easily you could get swept away. You don't realize how quickly the ground is eroding and how fragile everything becomes. Concrete turns into creamy butter, dirt hills turn into a slippery slide, and gravel just sinks. It changes the entire landscape and makes all the streets that were once so familiar and safe look like wild predators and that is just freaky. When Mother Nature flexes her muscles, it's defnitely humbling. For all of our amazing technologies, we still can't compete with her. All we can do is blink up at the sky and wonder when the rain will stop.