The Flood

Dad always said that people remember things differently, and I know that is true. But this is my memory....
The Great Flood of Orangeville happened on the last day of school when I was in 5th grade. Anyway, that is what sticks in my memory because the next year on the last day of school, Uncle Jim...(Principal Peacock) showed us his home movie of the great flood. The entire school took their chairs up to lunchroom to watch the movie, along with other movies. I remember him asking who remembered that day the previous year. We didn't have the lunchroom until I was in sixth grade, so the flood had to be when I was in fifth grade. That's the way it is in my memory.

It had rained all day long, really rained. Back then, we had ditched, the canal, and the one-lane bridge. I remember walking home in the pouring rain and getting drenched to the skin. I remember sitting on the red stool watching out the kitchen window as the water rushed down the road. The jeep was outside at the end of the sidewalk and the water was up to the middle of the wheels. Dad was running in and out, driving away and then coming home, for whatever reason. I know there were a few times he grabbed the shovel and went up to the canal on the corner, where the canal crossed under main street. I suppose they were trying to close down the gate that let the water into the ditches.

The canal ran along from the corner on Main Street behind Uncle Bruce's house and to the corner by the elementary ball field. There was only a small dirt road along that block east of the school, with the open canal right where the middle of the road is now. There was a foot bridge that went from across the bridge over to Aunt Lorene's house, no handrails or guard rails. The canal was flooded over and the foot bridge was underwater. Sometime during the afternoon we got in our car and drove over to Aunt Lorene's house. I remember seeing the water coming down the road in front of the school and across the canal. I wondered how the water went OVER the water in the canal! The water was moving really fast down the road and fields there, right into George and Ann Bell's basement windows.

I remember people saying that the canal above town had broken and the water was all rushing east through town. My kids might remember how the rain rushes off the clay hills up the canyon...well that is what was happening, but it was all over town. Cottonwood Creek was so full, with trees and muddy water rushing so fast. The water came clean up to our backyard, in the middle of all the apple and plum trees. There was a time Mom worried about the water coming up to the house.

I remember the water had washed over the road at the Mill Dam, and for several months we couldn't get across, until a new road was built. I don't remember if the dam there broke, or if it was always broken. It seems like another chunk of it was broken off.

You can see from the picture above that the water had been higher than in the picture. Look on the step on the left. It has dirt and debris that was left from the higher water. The walking path on the other side of the bridge was probably just touching the water. I hated to walk across that on a good day, let alone during a flood!

It was certainly a flood to remember. I don't think a "last day of school" goes by that I don't think about that flood. I am sure everyone has lots of stories they could tell about The Great Flood of Orangeville.