From the sheriff’s department

I got a call from a very nice lady at the sheriff’s department this afternoon. She told me that the county had a road grader out working in the Hercules Glades area, and that he had found our van and “our” two dogs (NOT our dogs – actually strays that someone had dropped near the van).  The sheriff’s department wanted to make sure we were not stranded with the van and that there weren’t hikers stuck out in the woods there.  They were also concerned about the dogs, which I told her were not ours and ought to be taken to the humane society.

In addition, the sheriff’s department wants the van moved to higher ground because, “there’s no plan to release any water, and if the water level rises, the van could be washed away where it’s parked now.”  Lovely.  I guess with everything flooded, even a little bit of rain could raise the water level a lot.  I thought the van was five or six feet above the water level of two feet ten inches that Scott waded through on Tuesday morning, but Josiah said that when he and Jessica had rescued the guys on Sunday afternoon (when the creek was significantly lower) he had thought the van was only three feet above water  then.  Who knows?   The kind lady asked me if we had a key hidden that she could tell the county guy to use to move it, but unfortunately, the only keys are here at home.

I told her to please let the sheriff know that we are NOT abandoning the van, that we desperately need it at home, and that we simply didn’t know of any way to get it home until the water goes down.  She said she understood and asked if we realized that it could be months before that happens.  Sigh.  Yes, we realize that.  I asked her what she would do if it were HER van stuck on the far side of the creek.  “Well,” she said slowly.  “Do you have full coverage?  Do you know if it would cover it?”

“No, we only have liability.”

 “I honestly don’t know.  Our man with the grader was able to get across the creek, but even if you had a boat, I don’t know how you could float it across.”

I thanked her and told her that we’d move the van to higher ground as soon as possible.  She asked how we could do that, and I replied, “drive to the crossing and wade (or swim) over with a key.”

In a bizarre twist of events, Jessica and her friend, Courtney, had gone over to Hercules Glade to do some hiking for fun – after SDC was closed on the one day they had planned to spend together before Courtney’s mission trip to Thailand and move out-of-state (AARRGGHH!) – so we called Jessica to see if she were still in the area and perhaps had a van key with her, in which case she could move it.  It turns out she had no van key, but they were in the area.  In fact, she and Courtney had been about to swim there in the creek right in front of the van!

Scott asked her to come home, get a van key, go back, and move the van.  So she and Courtney came home and got the key plus the boys.  The four of them are headed back to the Cane Creek crossing now.

Jessica said that they will have to drive past a Road Closed sign at the top of the hill (before you head down to the creek), but that she and Courtney had met the county grader guy and that he was very nice.  Sadly, he did not have any brainy ideas on how to get the van back across the creek.