As I write this essay, I’m unclear about the damage in Pagosa Springs. The electric company LPEA announced a power outage at about 2am this morning, for downtown where I live, so my house and neighborhood were totally dark when I woke up.
So of course I had no internet connection.
I could see that the veterinarian’s office on Cemetery Road, visible from my kitchen window, had lights, so they must have had a generator. The early morning sky provided just the slightest bit of light so I walked out into the back yard, and could hear a rushing river.
I have never, in 30 years in my house, heard that sound from my back yard. The sound was coming from McCabe Creek, a small creek that is often nothing more than a trickle. In the dim light, looking down on the creek and neighborhood below my hillside property, it appeared that McCabe Creek had overflowed its banks and flooded some of the neighborhood.
Hard to tell in the dim light. But I had a sense that this weather event was much worse than the flood we had last year in October.
I walked back inside and dressed in the darkness, running through a list of possible places, maybe uptown, where I could find an internet connection and post the Friday issue of the Daily Post.
I settled on Higher Grounds Coffee as a likely choice. Possibly the power outage didn’t include the uptown area.
Driving up Put Hill in the darkness on a nearly empty highway, the well-lit businesses at the top of the hill obviously had electricity. As I passed the entrance to Walmart, I saw that the adjacent wetlands had become a lake, and the large meadow on the west side of Alpha Drive that was flooded and spilling across the road.
Higher Grounds was open and serving a few customers. The coffee was nice and hot.
So I was able to post a couple of stories.
Bill Hudson began sharing his opinions in the Pagosa Daily Post in 2004 and can't seem to break the habit. He claims that, in Pagosa Springs, opinions are like pickup trucks: everybody has one.