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

the ffwthfredt Cwwet 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 32 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