Finally, The Flood
The Last Night In Mountain View
Unexplained wailing from the woods, spaghetti sandwiches, and the dependence of strangers on us for food notwithstanding,1 the Festival and Mountain View2 had been a fulfilling experience - and an exhausting one. On Saturday night, we settled into our sleeping bags in anticipation of awakening refreshed for our return to the now alluring normality of home.
After maneuvering our bodies to fit between the rocks, brush stubs, and other local detritus of nature that had, in this isolated region, apparently evolved the capacity to migrate beneath tent floors and subsequently position themselves squarely in their preferred habitat, the center of a sleepless camper’s back (an impediment that drove PolySciGuy and Flame to the comforts of their Fiat’s “hand tooled Italian leather seats”), we fell into a blissful, worry-free sleep.
Having seen many movies, we should have recognized that
The first sign of impending trouble was Hippie With Tiara’s mildly disconcerting awareness, when she awoke at daybreak, that her hand was wet. Her next and more disturbing discovery was that her hand was wet because it was submerged in a puddle. More worrisome still was her comprehension that her hand was wet because it was submerged in a puddle located in the center of our tent and that, moreover, said puddle was only one of numerous puddles now forming within the increasingly hypothetical shelter afforded by the tent.
The Exit Strategy
Soon all six of us were awake and assessing the situation. We soon determined that (1) conceptually, the problem was not so much that the tent was leaking from the rain as it as it was that the tent was overwhelmed by a downpour performing an admirable impersonation of Niagara Falls3 and (2) consequently, being soaked inside the tent afforded no significant advantage to being soaked outside the tent. From this analysis, a sophisticated, interlocking tactical plan evolved:
- Pack our stuff
- Get the heck out of here
Phase 1 of this plan, while not executed faultlessly, was accomplished within acceptable parameters (i.e., there were no fatalities). In the continuing downpour, we quickly stashed our belongings and remaining food and supplies into the trunk. And, while cramming the tent’s now water-saturated 72,000 square yards of canvas into the back seat demonstrated a gracefulness, efficiency, and fastidiousness one might associate with concurrent swamp drainage and tag team swamp alligator wrestling, the beast we had called home the past two nights finally succumbed to our increasingly desperate efforts.
Over The River And - Oops, Maybe Not
We headed out of the campground, sloshing though the spectacular muck that can be created only by combining Arkansas clay with a deluge of water. The road out of town was in sight when …
We interrupt this narrative for a reminder & supplemental information
OK, who remembers the “dry creek bed” from yesterday’s post - the place with the low-water bridge we crossed to enter the camping area? Well, here’s a point of interest: that very same creek bed serves as the primary drainage for the immediate geographic area, the predominant topological feature of which is a range of hills. In 1973, it was also a region already drenched by weeks of abnormally high rainfalls. Now, add to your previous mental image of that creek bed, spanned only by a low water bridge, enough water to fill it beyond its banks with rain continuing to fall on and drain from those nearby hills in quantities sufficient to meet criteria for the Where’s Noah when you need him? storm classification.
We now return to our regularly scheduled posting.
… we discovered that the low water crossing over the dry creek bed had been replaced by a roiling gush of water with no bridge of any kind visible
As we approached the water we watched one car drive onto the low-water bridge, now buried under a rushing stream. The vehicle began moving with the current and seemed doomed to be swept downstream when, at the last moment, the driver managed to escape the waters, gaining enough traction to climb the bank on the opposite side.
In testimony to the narrow margin separating that successful crossing from the catastrophe it could have been, no one else, among the multitude stranded in that campground, many of whom had demonstrated in the preceding two days a distinct lack of judgment, impaired reality testing, and no evidence of an instinct for self-preservation, made an attempt to ford the stream.4
Our master plan was immediately adapted to include a search for alternative, non-flooded exits from the area.
As it turned out, that altered plan contained a significant flaw that quickly declared itself.
Soon we were stuck, the car’s wheels submerged to the axle in the gumbo that was once a road. The usual remedies for such cases (e.g, rocking the car, shifting from low to reverse and back again, passengers pushing the car, etc.) were unrequited. The rain, in case the reader is curious, continued unabated. Because the wheels were literally inaccessible, we tried using the jack to raise the tires high enough to place gravel and debris under them for traction only to have the jack repeatedly slip from its base in the mud. Attempts to stabilize the jack with gravel, paper, and scraps of wood were similarly unsuccessful.
When The Going Gets Touch, The Women Get Going
Those masculine efforts thus stymied, the womenfolk took action.
Under the leadership of Hippie With Tiara, they initiated a search for willing, able-bodied men - and found them.
Thank goodness.
Shrewdly focusing on smoke filled cars (with a raging river between them and the law, many of the youngsters were openly toking up), Hippie With Tiara reverted to the “I’m a poor little hippie girl” mode that had served her well in her halcyon, pre-marital days, even managing to shed a few tears for effect. Soon, a battalion of young, long-haired, notably carefree males, oblivious to the rainstorm pelting them, were ambling behind our female contingent toward the immobilized vehicle. On cue, they literally lifted the car out of the muck and moved it to (comparatively) solid ground.
By the time we reorganized and repacked the materials we had unloaded to access the jack, the rain had subsided somewhat, as had the creek blocking our exit. It was then decided that we would not only try to hydrofoil the Tempest across the stream that was now somewhat diminished in volume (although it still completely covered the low-water bridge) but - for reasons neither Lord of Leisure or I can currently recall or comprehend - that Flame, certainly the most fearless of our group, would be the driver for this stunt.5
She skimmed that sucker across the water without hesitation or deviation. Evel Knievel would have been proud.
The remainder of our trip was arduous but, happily, dull. We cleaned ourselves as best we could in the restrooms at a filling station where, I am certain, one could today find residue traceable to our visit. Floods throughout mid-Missouri that day forced us to make time-consuming detours en route to home, but traveling on dry land seemed worth the effort.
Epilogue
PolySciGuy and Flame are no longer married. I married the woman who shared a sleeping bag with me on the trip and then we divorced. Lord of Leisure and Hippie With Tiara are not only still happily wed to each other but have visited Mountain View recently. I’m willing to wager none of the six of us, regardless of our intervening careers, relationships, children, and many other trips and festivals, has forgotten that Easter weekend in 1973.
I don’t think we ever used that tent again. On the other hand, I saw Lord of Leisure’s brother at his nephew’s wedding last year, and we had a gratifying and friendly conversation without a single mention of his Tempest’s Arkansas misadventure; heck, give it another 34 years and Lord of Leisure could probably borrow another vehicle from him.
Bonus Background Information
Lest the reader think I indulged in hyperbole in writing about the rains and their consequences, I will point out that our Easter deluge was part of the 1973 floods that were among the most severe to ever take place in the Midwest, as summarized in this analysis authorized by the State of Missouri :
*Note: The creek that blocked our departure flowed into the White River which was also the river we crossed at Sylamore Ferry.
A sense of our experience driving home on Easter Sunday 1973 and the catastrophes suffered by the Midwest that year may be best conveyed by these photos of flooding that year.
Footnotes
- See previous posts:
- Current information about The Ozark Folk Festival, related events and activities, and the Mountain View area is available at the Ozark Folk Center web site.↩
- When my book of business and life strategies is published, this lesson will be encoded as Percept #27: Don’t send a tent to do an ark’s job↩
- In retrospect, this unwillingness to challenge the river was not only the result of intense fearfulness but was also the correct choice. This excerpt from the New York State Emergency Management Office helpfully explains the risks in such situations: DO NOT underestimate the destructive power of fast-moving water. As little as six inches of water may cause you to lose control of your vehicle. Two feet of fast-moving flood water will float your car. Water moving at two miles per hour can sweep cars off a road or bridge.↩
- Again, I offer to Lord of Leisure’s brother, who loaned us this car, our sincere apologies↩
