Flooding
I was living
in a tiny town called Aitkin, pronounced like bacon without the ‘b.’ I was
living in an apartment with a friend of mine and two more of our friends were
staying the night. It was a small apartment so it was cramped, but it was only
for one night, so it was fine. That night I woke up several times to flashing
lights. There was a lightning storm outside. The sky was lit up more often than
it was dark. I didn’t think anything of it.
We woke up
to find that the storm had been far reaching. Duluth, a city over one hundred
miles away, had flooded overnight. Entire parking lots were submerged, with
only the roofs of cars visible. Huge sink holes torn away roads. All roads to
Duluth were closed from every direction. The problem was that my two friends
lived in Duluth. They looked up possible routes and found none. They were
trapped in Aitkin.
Aitkin was
downriver from Duluth, and even as far as it was, it was still flooded. The
river ran through a park that was now completely underwater. A campground on
the other side of town was also gone. As the days wore on we measured the flood
by using a bench. On the first day we could still see its seat. A week later
the seat was underwater. Slowly after that the water went down.
On the
second day of the flood my two friends finally discovered a way to get to
Duluth. They had to go at least eighty miles out of the way to get there. I was
glad. I didn’t mind them being here, but my apartment was not meant for four
people. It could barely handle two. I don’t like crowds nor am I comfortable
trying to find things for four people in a small town going through a crisis
with absolutely nothing to do.
As the water
rose over the next few days several businesses were in danger of being flooded.
A garden shop was already completely water logged. The carpet place across the
street were desperately trying to place a sandbag barrier around their
building, but couldn’t do it alone. A local catholic congregation offered to
help and my roommate and I heard about it and offered to help as well. We
filled bags with sand and tied them off before handing them off to someone who
would lay them down. After we had built a sizeable wall someone brought out
boxes of pizza. After all the hard work, that was some of the best pizza I ever
had.
The leader
of the group that had volunteered to help build the sandbag wall was impressed
with my roommate and me. Not only had two twenty something boys offered to do a
lot of hard work for nothing, but we also had an incredible work ethic. At
least, that was how he saw it. To be honest, it had been the most fun I had
ever had in that little town.
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