Equinox XI: It Still Moves

This past weekend our group of friends held our eleventh annual Equinox celebration. It was nothing short of magical, as I believe I can say year after year. Our family of friends came together to hang out, catch up, relax, throw some shoes, drink some cider and Octoberfest, sleep under the stars, and just enjoy being in the company of so many wonderful people. This was Trafton's second Equinox celebration and he enjoyed himself immensely.

The quiet stage.

This year's Equinox was appropriately named "It Still Moves" after last year's "Humdinger." I mean, it really is amazing that it still goes on after eleven years with these folks. I hope it never ends!

Tom, who is expecting his first baby at the end of January, came over to our house early in the morning to help us carry items up to the farm where the celebration was taking place.

Jim decided to have Equinox cut into our fire barrel this year. Nice touch!

Let the festivities begin!

Trafton took his afternoon nap (you can see his crib in the lower right hand corner) in the field with all the action going on around him. Thank goodness this baby has always been a good sleeper! Uncle Jonathan arrived just as Trafton was waking up.

Aunt Melissa

Darkness settles in over the farm

Hard to see, but the horseshoe tournament went into the evening hours.

Jake, Chris, Joe

Kara and Greg (recently engaged!)

Karen and Trafton

Trafton hung in there until about 9:00. He was enjoying roaming the farm and getting as dirty as possible!

Watching Cabinet play from the hillside

Carrie, Jessica, Joe

Me and Jess

Carrie and Trafton

Fireside hanging

Waiting for Cabinet to start playing, the Benders got a front row seat.

Joe, Jonathan, Brett

Folks gathered around the bar

Cara and Jay

Cabinet takes the stage once again at Equinox!

Trafton really liked dancing on this bench with David.

He also liked playing in the hay right in front of the band.

He started to get tired and almost fell asleep in Greg's arms.

Trafton went to sleep in the tent without a single fuss. He is a very good camper!

Scott was nominated to give this year's Sangria Toast.

He did a great job getting us all to raise our glasses!

Everyone came to the stage area for the toast.

Then Cabinet got right into set number two!

Todd, the fiddle player, actually debuted a new instrument (this is not it in the picture) that he made himself called a fiddlelele (a fiddle made from a ukelele). It sounded wonderful.

Joe is letting loose!

Time to throw some hay around while Cabinet rocks it!

View of the Old Barn area from the camping area on Sunday morning

My boys relaxing in the tent

Joe P. went out in the morning for bagels and cream cheese. He even came back with some chocolate milk for Trafton - which Trafton enjoyed very much.

Tom and Katie with Trafton, sporting their 'hangover' cures (black electrical tape on the head).

Still drinking that chocolate milk

Trafton and Kinsey

Trafton was fascinated by the empty barrels.

Kristin and Brandon - time for lunch on Sunday

Playing with pumpkins

Bloomsburg Flood, September 2011

When Hurricane Irene hit two weeks ago, the water levels in our nearby streams and rivers were so low, the town of Bloomsburg went largely unaffected. With the exception of some residents losing power, there was no reported news of major flooding. Then it just continued to rain. And rain. And rain even more. It just felt scary. Still, none of the newscasts were saying that we should prepare for anything too terrible. On Wednesday morning of last week, there were a couple of area schools closed due to local flooding. The rain just kept falling.

We were dismissed from school early and people were starting to get worried. The newscasters were saying that we should prepare for flooding like we had back in 2006. Two busloads of students were stranded at my school for 45 minutes after their bus should have picked them up because their busses needed to be rerouted due to rising waters. Trafton's daycare called me and said I needed to come get him right away because their building was taking on water. I panicked. A normal 9-10 minute drive took me over forty minutes. I must have been one of the very last cars allowed to drive down route 11 that day, because Fishing Creek and other runoff water was beginning to spill its banks.

It rained all afternoon and all night. School was cancelled on Thursday. It rained all day on Thursday, too. Not just light rain, but steady, heavy rain. Flood stage for the Susquehanna River in Bloomsburg is 19 feet. The newscasters were telling us that a projected crest of 26 feet would occur on Friday. Sirens were going off to evacuate the west end of town. Loudspeakers were claiming "This is not a drill." I'm not gonna lie, it was getting scarier by the minute. School was cancelled on Friday and the Susquehanna River crested at 32.75 feet that morning. This was worse than the flood resulting from Hurricane Agnes in 1972 that I have heard about numerous times over the past eleven years that I have lived in this town.

We watched the river rise from our house. The riverbank is normally 3/4 of a mile from our house and it can not be seen in any direction. On Friday, the river stopped rising just across the street from our home. Although we knew we were probably not in any danger ourselves, because we sit slightly higher than many of the houses around us, it was still really eerie.

It is Tuesday afternoon that I write this and our school has been cancelled for the remainder of the week. No water got on the first floor of the school, but the basement was flooded and there are a few other problems that we have heard about. An oil tank was exposed and a concrete slab is on top of it. A sinkhole opened up nearby. Power is out in some parts of the school. The fieldhouse caught on fire (sort of ironic). The middle school in the district that Daniel teaches in, Danville, was flooded and no one is allowed in the building. They are reopening on Thursday of this week, with all those teachers and students being placed in other buildings until the middle school can be assessed.

We lost power for two days and still have no water. We are hoping that water will be turned back on later today. We have it good. We were very fortunate. It was reported that 25% of this town was directly affected by flooding. People have lost their entire homes and apartments and belongings. The Red Cross and Salvation Army and other localized organizations are providing disaster relief and emergency services. The police and National Guard are providing protection from looters by closing roads to any non-residents and strictly enforcing an after dark curfew. However, this town is pulling together. Even though no one thought it was going to be nearly this bad and probably no one alive has experienced a flood like this in this town (the last flood that reached 31.7 feet occured in 1904), these residents know how to clean up from a flood. People are pulling together and helping each other out in ways you can only imagine. There is a tremendous outpouring of support from those unaffected by the flood. No lives have been lost. The town and its residents will make it through this misfortune, but it certainly won't ever be forgotten.

I did not take all of these pictures. Some were taken by Daniel and I, others were taken from friends, friends of friends, and journalists.

Daniel swept the water off of our back patio on Wednesday night to prevent basement flooding. We had no water in our basement at all.

An aerial view of the west end of Bloomsburg. Our house is the one at the bottom left of the picture.

Our street, West Third, as the water rose. This is the view from our house.

Friday's crest on our street - the water is strangely silent.

Another aerial view - the large building is where I work - Bloomsburg Middle and High School.

View of the school from Railroad Street

West Main Street - this flooding was from Fishing Creek

Just down the street from us - the bridge to Fernville

The Bloomsburg Fairgrounds

The fair is supposed to start in less than two weeks

Rieter - the factory down the street that employs approximately 700 people may not be able to recover from this flood.

View of Market Street from 5th Street

The news vehicles were everywhere.

Reporter Ryan Leckey talking to our neighbors (Reagan Medgie was up the street earlier)

Ryan Leckey gave his broadcast from on top of the flooded auto parts store across the street from us.

Trafton enjoyed playing in the water that we had stored before our water was shut off.

The National Guard is still monitoring traffic at the corner of Railroad and 5th Street.

The Town Park Village

Residents were evacuated very fast from this area and many lost everything because they didn't have time to pack or prepare.

Town Park Pavillion

Raging waters through the streets

The Bloomsburg airport

The planes are usually all moved to the highest point of the airport during a flood. However, even the highest point was flooded this time.

The airport and bridge leading out of Bloomsburg toward Catawissa

Flooded Fernville

Kawneer

Outside of our friend, Joe's, house - this is what so many houses in town look like right now. Everyone's personal belongings and furniture and appliances are just being picked scooped up and placed in dumptrucks all day long, each day that the flood cleanup efforts continue.

A few houses on West Main Street were completely destroyed.