Family Preparation & Survival Guide

     My first childhood natural disaster experience was pretty rough.  It could have been a lot worse and I thank the Good Lord for that.  My second natural disaster experience was kindof my fault.  Well it was really all my fault.  It was kindof humerous though.

     I was 13 or 14 at the time of this incident.  It had been raining for a couple of days straight.  The steady rain hadn’t been a downpour or anything like a hard rain.  It was Saturday and I had a friend spend the night with me the night before, as youngsters do.  We were board to death from being cooped up inside.  I had a great idea for something to do, or so I thought, to get some excitement out of the day.

     The creek next to our house was about 4 feet deep and moving pretty swift.  There was about a 5 foot drop from the road down to the swift-moving creek water that passed under the road.  I fired up the air compressor and inflated two air rafts.  The air rafts or air floats were the type that one would lay on when suntanning in a pool.  The plan was to jump off the road, land in the creek on the floats, RIDE THE RAPIDS to the end of our yard, & paddle over to the edge and get out.

     Attempt # 1 failed miserably.  We could not paddle (using our arms in a swimming motion) over to the edge and get stopped.  We both tried to bail off, stand up, and walk to the edge.  That didn’t work either.  What I forgot to tell you is that at the end of our yard there was a barbed-wire fence that went across the creek.  The last and only alternative was to grab the fence as we passed under it and manage to get inch our way to the edge.  SUCCESS !!!!!  We had a plan our down pat.

     All went ok for a while.  We were jumping off the road, RIDING THE RAPIDS, and grabbing the fence, and getting to the edge and getting out.  That went on for about an hour.  Little did we know the unthinkable was about to happen.  We had about a 300 yard ride down the creek before we had to get out.  Oh Yeah!  I forgot again.  on the other side of the fence was about 200 acres of woods with some of the thickest scrub brush and briars you could imagine.

     We just jumped in and was getting saddled up on the rafts for a ride when all of the sudden the creek seemed too wide.  We looked up ahead and part of the fence was under water.  The next strands of barbed-wire were too close to the water and too close together to go under or through.  We looked behind us and here came a wall of water with all kinds of debris, tree limbs, and just plain garbage.  OH —-!!!!  We both started yelling!  Nobody was around for miles because we were home alone. 

     All that garbage pinned us to that fence, luckily with our heads above water.  We could not move!!  All that stuff was pushing against us with a force that was unbelievable.  It hurt even to breathe.  Water started pouring over our heads and all around us and over us.  I started pleading, “GOD don’t let me die yet!!”  All of a sudden, the garbage flipped over us and we went rolling through garbage and debris filled water.  Our heads popped up above the water level at about the same time.  There was a raft just in front of us!  We both grabbed it as limbs and debris was beating us to death.  We were working on getting out of the flashflood when all the tree limbs and briars and vines and scrub brush started scratching us all to pieces.

     We finally got out of the swollen creek about 1/2 of a mile from home.  That is not a long distance but barefoot, beaten, & scratched, that was one of the hardest walks of my life.  I was almost too exhausted to walk, too shook up to stand still, and too tenderfooted to step through the woods but I pushed onward.  And you know it, as we came out of the woods looking like we had been in a fight with a wild cat or something,  there was MOM with a belt in hand.  I didn’t care. That was one whipping I was glad I could get and I took it and collapsed without saying a  word.  My friend took his whipping laying down without saying a word also.  

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