The Furious Spinner

Ah, home. (Where is home, exactly?) We've come back to the Pacific Northwest in time to witness a massive landslide.

The Earth moves here. We learned that the first week we moved to the PNW twenty-four years ago: part of Highway 101, the main road on the coast where we lived, slid a couple hundred feet away, into the ocean. I remember seeing the photograph of the road and the slide and being astonished—and a bit concerned. Where on Earth had I moved to?

Now we live between the mountains in the Cascades, near the Columbia River. If you looked at a topographical map of this area, you would see the names of the various slide areas. The Earth moves. Always has. We have earthquakes, mudslides, landslides, volcanic eruptions. And a whole lot of rain. The mudslides and landslide are exacerbated by logging and development which can damage aquifers. The aquifers help the ground drain (among other things) and if they're damaged the ground obviously can't drain as well and landslides occur.

In the last three hours of our trip from Arizona, we heard on the radio that part of our town was slip-sliding away. Once we got home, I wandered around town until I found a place where I could see the area that was sliding. The homeowners of one house that officials believed was going to go over the cliff had evacuated. Exhausted and out of money, they abandoned the house to the slide. The year before, they moved the house away from the cliff with the help of neighbors and friends. When the hillside began to crack and move again recently, they decided enough was enough. I walked down the closed road and was astonished and awed at the crack in the earth. (The photos do not do it justice—none of the photographs I took really show the magnitude of what is happening.)



Then I went up to a new development across the creek gorge from this cleft in the earth. It was the first time I had seen this development. About twenty houses have recently been built here. They are all huge, costing about $600,000, give or take slightly. I live in one of the poorest counties in the state. We have a shortage of housing, shortage of land, and shortage of affordable housing. And I mean affordable housing for middle-income people. It seemed obscene, or something, to see all these immodest homes built above us all.

I went to the edge of the cliff (near where many of the houses had been built) and looked out at the hillside that was falling away. I stood next to many of my townspeople. We said to one another, "Who in our town can afford these houses?" These houses were being bought by people who don't live here. We talked about the movie It's A Wonderful Life. (Twice in the space of a week, someone brought up this aspect of that movie.) Remember how Jimmy Stewart's character built affordable houses for the townspeople? Someone said, "We need Jimmy Stewart now." I said, "When is enough enough?" As we watched the ground slipping away across from us, I thought about how the gap is growing in our country between the haves and the have nots.


(last week)


(this week, Wednesday)


(Wednesday, house is now visible since trees fell)




In the days that followed, we heard that the county engineer thought one thing would happen to the cliff and the geologist thought another thing would happen. The elected officials asked the Corps of Engineers if they could dredge the creek before the slide. Those in the know feared that a giant landslide would cause a massive flood that would take out one to three of our bridges as well as flood parts of the downtown. Eventually all the different agencies agreed that this was an emergency and they gave permission for the dredging to begin. (Because of the dams on the Columbia River, many rivers and creeks in this area cannot do what they do naturally: drain. Sediment builds up so that few (if any) of the creeks and rivers run naturally any more. They should run downhill into the Columbian, but the buildup of sediment (because of the dams) prevents this drainage and clogs up the creeks and rivers.


(before dredging)

For four days, men and their machines remade our creek—the creek that runs through our town and is out water source. Above, the county had a man posted around the clock to watch the hillside. They figured that if the hill came down all at once and clogged the gorge, they'd have about an hour to get people out of the creek and to evacuate those homes downtown that would be flooded before the water could break through the newly-formed earthen dam. Everyone hoped that scenario would not unfold. The hope was that the hill would come down slowly.

Six to eight CAT excavators—they call them backhoes here—worked around the clock. In the beginning, it looked so chaotic that we crossed our fingers that they knew what they were doing. And it was a spectator sport. Many townspeople came out and stood on the old bridge and breathed in diesel fumes while they watched the work.

First the men drove the CATS into the creek and moved rock from one side (and the bottom of) the creek to the other side and created a deep channel so that if it did flood it wouldn't knock out the bridge and our sewer system. Once that job was completed, they moved the earth they had piled on one side into the back of dump trucks. The trucks hauled the dirt away to another place near the creek and used the dirt to create a berm to protect the sewage treatment plant in case the creek flooded. The men worked in teams, two CATS next to each other. The machines were close together, and the diggers went into the earth and up again, swinging around, but they never hit each other. One man and machine (and they were all men) dug the earth out of the ground and creek and put it in a pile while the other man and his machine took the earth from that pile and dropped it into the back of a dump truck. Every once in a while, they would pick up one boulder and deposit it on the top of the pile. The movement seemed so gentle and delicate that it took my breath away. Mario and I were both mesmerized by these mechanical dances. (I said to Mario, "If these men make love the way they work, they have some very happy partners.)


(southern view, while dredging)


(after dredging)


(north view, while dredging)


(after dredging)

Because of the diesel fumes, I didn't stay long on the bridge. (Yes, I can smell diesel fumes, although I don't recognize them as diesel fumes. More on that in another post.) I did go up to the heights several times and watched as earth slid into the creek. Sometimes we'd hear a crack and a pine tree would fall into the gorge. Soon the fallen trees created a kind of beaver dam in the creek. Rain fell for days, so the creek ran faster and higher, and this helped clear out the sediment.

I couldn't sleep some nights. It felt like everyone was on pins and needles. Someone said it was like we were all waiting for the birth of a baby. It was as though the whole town was waiting for catastrophe. Or a birth. After one sleepless night, I went down to the river at 4:30 a.m., and I watched the machines work in the creek.

Tuesday, the men and their machines ended their work. They had dredged the creek—remade it—and completed the berm. Wednesday, the hill began sliding in earnest. All day it slip-slided into the gorge. The creek was a carmel-colored torrent. Down by the bridge the water raced—stirring, stirring, stirring everything up.

Thursday, the slide stopped, and the hill stabilized—for now. This morning I walked around our creek. They had ripped out most of the riparian trees, although they left the trees that take longer to grow (like the conifers). I stopped and talked with a retired biologist who was taking pictures, and he said the willows and other trees would come back fairly quickly. I noticed they hadn't pulled up the roots of the trees, so maybe the roots would continue to stabilize the banks until the trees came back up again.

Now I'm home. I've been in a funk since we got home—got to this place. Up on the hill in the rain and the cold as I watched and listened to the earth move with my fellow citizens, I felt at home—and I felt alien. This morning as I walked alongside the creek, it looked familiar and strange to me. And the world was so gray and dark and soggy. I felt like I was in Russia at the end of winter. Everything feels strange to me. Everything is changing. Everything is always changing. Go with the flow. This place didn't really feel like home until Linda and I became friends. Now she's gone. I feel rootless again. I want to be like those big old-growth trees in Falling Creek: deep and old and rooted in all that is.

I keep remembering that dream I had when I was in New Mexico ten years ago. In the dream I put my hand in this hand (see picture), and the Earth poured up through my fingers, held my hand, and said, "This is home."



At the time I thought the dream meant New Mexico was my home; when I told Linda my dream, she said it meant my body was my home. This morning, my fingers ached. (Was someone or something hanging on too tight?) Everything aches. Everything feels wrong. On New Year's Day, I made myself an unusual pledge—since I never make New Year's resolutions. I promised myself I would change my mind. Somehow I would change my mind—and I would find my home in my body and on this planet.

Today, I still feel like a visitor.

Labels: photos, sustainability

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Thursday, February 15, 2007

Oh When I Find My Life