Sandbagging

How small has the world become? Last night I'm at home working, generally oblivious to the world outside my office, when I get an email from Sam in Viña del Mar, Chile, where he and Rebecca are spending the month of June. He asked me if there was a flood in Salt Lake City, because he'd been asked to go help sandbag. I hadn't heard anything about it, but a quick check on a local news site revealed that the suddenly warm temps had caused a very high snow melt and flooding of the Little Cottonwood Creek, which runs within a mile of the house. And I got the news from Chile!

The request was out for volunteers, so I headed to the control center at Cottonwood Heights Elementary to see how I could help. Dumptrucks were bringing in loads of dirt--the local Cottonwood Basin loam--and we shoveled them into sandbags. Later, my "team" was called for to go off-site, in a neighborhood where the bags were already stacked chest high along the banks, protecting the neighborhood from the surging creek. The fire department was in charge there, and all of us stood around until about 11:00p, piles of sandbags at the ready, in case it started to rise again. (As the evening temps cool down, the risk of rising decreases.)

The efforts are remarkably well-organized by Salt Lake County, including utilizing local CERT (Community Emergency Relief Teams--or something like that) volunteers. (Yes, I have been CERT trained but didn't want to wear my funny hat and vest!)

It was nice to see a lot of community support, from wards, scout troops and just willing citizens, including quite a number of friends. Nice way to spend an evening. And fortunately, Sam was in South America to let me know.