1965-Voice Of The Tennessee Walking Horse 1965 February Voice | Page 32

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By ALETHA WIEHL
S211 East Sunset Drive
■^akima, Washington
“Everybody talks about the wea­
ther, but nobody does anything
about it" is an often repeated state­
ment. I always thought “Quite
true. Quite true.” But no more,
for we’ve spent the winter “doing
something” about our weather.
Lloyd had a couple of weeks vaca­
tion at Christmas time. We spent
just about every hour awake shov­
elling snow! And kept a husky
neighbor boy busy too!
The first snowfall was beautiful,
light and fluffy. And. as I swept a
path with a broom. I stopped now
and then to admire the whole new
world of whiteness, and “listen to”
the perfect stillness. For the snow
had grounded air travel, automo­
bile traffic was at a standstill, and
not a person in the immediate
neighborhood was astir. It was awe
inspiring, and truly beautiful.
But, the stuff kept coming. Two
feet of it fell at once, and more
followed. We not only swept paths
and more paths, and reswept those
paths, but finally had to shovel
snow off the roofs! Of course, all
of that came right down in the
paths we had so carefully shovel­
led, and had to be shovelled out
again. By that time, everyone was
in agreement, we’d had enough.
It was nothing more than a lit­
tle extra work for us, and an in­
convenience at times. (For a cou­
ple of days we were literally
“snowed in,” couldn’t get the cars
out of the garage. It looked like
we might have to ride the horses
in to town to get groceries!) But
to many it was a real disaster. The
great damage was due mostly to
thawing and flooding. Hundreds
lost their homes, everything they
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owned except the clothes on their
backs. Some lives were lost. Pre­
liminary estimates of flood dam­
age and clean-up work for Pacific
Power and Light Company was
about 3 million dollars. Towns
were wiped out. Great stretches of
super - highways completely de­
stroyed. It is impossible to esti­
mate the cost at this time. — Oh,
yes! We are told that there is still
the possibility of a dam bursting
in the canyon above our valley, if
extreme cold weather and the
wrong thawing conditions combine
to cause unmanageable ice jams.
The dam is in the Ellensburg
canyon to the north of Yakima. So,
if it fails to hold, we may be trav­
elling south mighty fast, wailing
“California, here we come!” (It’s
easy for us