The Gazette’s front-page story this week has its fair share of past conditional verbs. That’s because I’m writing on Monday afternoon. Knowing that you’ll be reading this on Wednesday at the earliest, I’ve thrown in a good number of should have’s and was meant to’s, because even now, after a weekend of sandbagging and building berms and nerves, we’re still not sure.
About a half-hour ago, I was at City Park, where water from the Kettle had given the goslings a series of new kiddie pools to test out their swimming skills. I would expect that the honks coming from their parents translate to something like, “Don’t go past the swing set or you’ll get swept away!” In the river’s regular channel, soggy logs are whizzing by before churning around in the eddies below the 2nd Street bridge, busting apart and continuing on towards Cascade – a good warning to any gosling to not try and take on too much today.
Clearly, many of my neighbours thought differently this weekend though, because I got to witness dozens of them take on thunderstorms and snowmelt and a rising river and heat and soggy socks as they rallied to protect their own friends and neighbours.
As I rode my bike around town on Saturday, trying to catch pictures of different scenes, I found many of the same faces staring back at me through the lens, surrounded by new workmates. I somehow would run into the same volunteers filling sandbags and the arena, stacking them at buildings on Riverside Drive and then grabbing snacks for another troupe of aching backs somewhere else. So many people wanted to help and lend a hand wherever they were needed most.
What struck me hard today was reading two sequential posts from Gabe Warriner of the River Valley Community Church. On Sunday night he posted a thank-you message to the formidable legion of volunteers that helped in various locations around Grand Forks over the weekend and noted “Tomorrow: Monday, June 1st. We are taking a break.” Today, the intended break day, Gabe posted again. “Hey everyone, we have water rising. There is sand at the credit union. If you can bring a shovel we don’t have machinery there but need sandbags. Thank you!”
Of course. Of course that’s what many of our neighbours realized today, no matter how tired they were. We’re fortunate to have so many strong-hearted (and strong-backed) community leaders here, who take it upon themselves to lift others up. Volunteering with the sandbag operation was not exclusive – everyone could find a role for themselves. Watching the faces of those who gave up their weekends also suggested that volunteering was uplifting for themselves as well. Whether people were just excited to get a good day’s workout in after gyms have been closed for two months or not, the smiles, the laughter and the encouragement around the sand piles was a special phenomenon to witness.
I’m glancing at the Boundary-famous Kettle River gauge at Ferry, Wash. right now (2:04 p.m., June 1). It says the water falls from here on out. We’ll see. The Granby River is also meant to top out quite soon. We’ll see. What we know is that tens of thousands of volunteer-filled, hauled and stacked sandbags have helped people stay dry thus far, so thank you, every person who got mucky and tired for their neighbours this weekend.