Topeka Capital-Journal, The: Old Man River

Pottawatomie County used sandbags along banks of creek

ST. GEORGE --- St. George resident Steve King got some unexpected storm cleanup help Saturday from Pottawatomie County Commissioner Barb Kolde.

Kolde stopped by King's residence on Oakview Drive to personally remove a small tree limb from King's front yard and haul it away in her pickup truck.

On Friday, Kolde and other county public officials performed a much bigger task --- arranging a sand-bagging operation to save a handful of residences threatened by floodwaters that overflowed Blackjack Creek during a downpour Thursday evening.

"I have a whole new respect for water after seeing this flood," King said Saturday. "Just to hear the sound of the water during the night made you think about the power of water."

Quick action by commissioners and Pottawatomie County's emergency management director allowed for the delivery of sandbags and several loads of sand to homeowners along the creek on Friday.

About 40 volunteers worked Friday afternoon to shore up Blackjack Creek's erosion-prone banks in anticipation of another round of flooding Friday night. Although the rains came again, almost like clockwork, King said, the creek never left its banks.

King said the week's worth of flooding has cost his back yard about 3 feet of usable real estate, compliments of the land- grabbing creek.

Since moving to the property three years ago, King estimates he has lost a total of 6 feet to the creek's periodic rampages.

As a result of Thursday's flash flood, King also watched as the creek upended a 20-foot-tall maple tree, which is now a horizontal feature of the backyard landscape.

King says the creek swallowed up the back part of his prized cyclone fence three years ago, he said.

Kolde said homes in the nearby Louisville community also had been threatened by fast-rising floodwaters on Rock Creek on Thursday, although receding water levels on Friday had staved off the need for emergency sandbagging operations.

However, as a precaution, multiple truckloads of sand were delivered to a community staging area on Friday through a joint effort arranged by officials of both Pottawatomie and Riley counties, she said.

"You can never be too careful," she said, "when it comes to flooding, particularly on these smaller creeks, where water can rise and fall pretty quickly."

King says he has no choice but to leave in place the hundreds of sandbags that now line the washed-out portion of the creek, which, like the Mississippi River immortalized in the tune, "Old Man River," is apparently determined to "jus' keep movin' along."

"The erosion has gone so far," he said. "We'll have to leave them there just to prevent any further washout, or until somebody figures something else out."

Matt Moline can be reached at matthew.moline@cjonline.com.