Five feet high and rising

"How high's the water, mama? Two feet high and risin' How high's the water, papa? Two feet high and risin'"

So sang Johnny Cash many years ago - and the song was appropriate on Whychus Creek last week.

The story by Joseph Duerrmeyer in the October 25, 2006 issue of The Nugget, concerning Whychus Creek, hopefully opened the eyes - or removed the blinders - of those people building homes on the creek's flood plain.

Unfortunately, however, a lot of people seem to have a short memory when it comes to natural phenomena that rips out bridges, as a flood did at Whychus Creek in 1964 when it was known as Squaw Creek. It is a well-documented fact that erecting a structure on a flood plain is a form of Russian roulette; it is not a question of will the creek flood but when will it flood.

Floods, according to insurance companies and others who classify such natural events, are considered "Acts of God." If that's so, then the people who have built - and are continuing to build - homes along Whychus Creek should break out their scriptures: From Genesis to James we have been warned, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."

If, however, you want to look at the flooding of Whychus Creek from a pure scientific viewpoint then be warned, historically the creek has flooded seven times since 1884, (over its banks and with enough hydraulic energy to carry away real estate and structures). And don't forget to take into consideration the unusual 100-year and 1,000-year floods.

Only 44 years ago, in October of 1962, I drove from Portland to Bend with my family two days after the infamous Columbus Day Storm and drove through water from the creek running over the Highway 20 bridge.

That colossal storm was considered by NOAA as an "extratropical wave cyclone" and ranked among the most intense to strike the Pacific Northwest since at least 1948 - a contender for the title of the most powerful extratropical cyclone recorded in the U.S. in the 20th century.

In addition to the pain and suffering of lost lives when creeks and rivers go wild over their banks, there is the business of business. Relief workers and volunteers spend thousands of hours and wheelbarrows full of money helping the so-called "victims" of these "Acts of God" when they should know better than to build on a flood plain in the first place. There are old-timers living in Sisters today who remember vividly each time Whychus Creek reared its destructive head and went on the rampage.

In Christmas of 1964, little old "Wild and Scenic" Whychus Creek threatened the city of Sisters. County road crews cut deep ditches along Three Creek Road to keep the flooding creek out of town, but they couldn't stop it from tearing out the county bridge. County crews had to lasso the bridge and tie it to a tree to keep it from going downstream and smashing into the bridge on Highway 20.

The Army engineers straightened out the creek so it would never do that nonsense again. They trenched it like an irrigation ditch.

That all but killed Camp Polk Meadow (which the Deschutes Basin Land Trust is bringing back to life). The trenching process wiped out most of what little riparian habitat there was so that no self-respecting salmon could live in it.

Over the last week, we have had another extratropical wave cyclone crash into Oregon. If there had been an early snow pack, a lot of people wouldn't have had to worry about setbacks, creekside vegetation, soft armouring with logs or whether the Army Engineers were concerned or otherwise. Structures and soil would likely all be on its way to Lake Billy Chinook.