El Niño 98
By:  Jason Petz
5th Grade

Tuesday, Day 1, February 3, 1998

It was Tuesday morning when my brother (Alex) and I woke up early.  We took our showers and got dressed before our parents woke up.  We wanted to have time to play our Nintendo 64 before we started school.  When my Mom woke up she opened the blinds to see what kind of day it was.  I walked over to the window and looked outside and I saw that the orchard across the street was full of water.  We noticed that the water was starting to trickle across the road towards the edge of our grass.  My Mom went into her room to wake up my Dad.

We were so surprised to see that the water was almost upon us.  All that we could do was watch it creep towards us and in ten minutes the water was up to the house.

Alex and I ran into our room and started packing our stuff.   Alex packed almost everything that he owned.  My Mom and Dad told Alex to pack clothes instead of toys.  I packed clothes and my new CD player.

Alex and I was afraid that the water was going to get inside our house.  Our Dad said that our house was high off the ground so the water couldn't get into our house.  I got out my camera and took some pictures of the flood to put into my scrapbook.  It looked like we were sitting in the middle of a lake.

My uncle went to the store to buy us each a pair of boots, so that we could get to the car without getting to wet.  The water was up to the rim on my Dad's tires.  Before we left we put our dog Tippy up on the front porch because his dog run was full of water and his dog house was floating on top of the water.

We decided to go to our Grandma's house, hoping that her house wasn't flooded, but when we got there we found out that the water was going in their front yard and it was already up to the front step of the front door.

When we got to our Grandma's house we had a lot to tell her.   Everyone was watching the water and a newspaper crew even came out and took pictures of us and asked us questions about the flood.  The rest of the day we watched the flood on the news and we played Nintendo.  We decided that we would have to spend the night there.  There were six kids and six adults.  All of us kids slept in the living room.  My Mom and Dad went back to our house to sleep.

During the day, Grandpa went down to our house and got Tippy.   He tied him up behind his house and during the night he barked all night and kept the adults awake.

As I went to sleep I was wondering if the water was going to get in our house and what kind of day tomorrow was going to be.  It had been a very busy terrible day and I was hoping tomorrow would be better.

Wednesday, Day 2, February 4, 1998

The next morning when I woke up I looked out the window and I noticed that the water level had went down.  I was so happy.  Grandma made fresh orange juice for us.  Papa decided that our well was probably contaminated so after breakfast he took me into town to get chlorine to put in our well.  Grandpa said that the chorine would kill the bacteria that got in our well.

My Dad went to work and our Mom took us home.  It was difficult to unload our stuff because there was a lot of slippery mud everywhere.   Our Mom told us that we didn't have to do school work that day because we were very tired and she had to clean up all of the mud on the sidewalks and patio.

While she was spraying the patio, Papa pulled in with sandbags in the back of his truck.  I went out to see what he was doing and he said that he was going to put sandbags around our well.  I put some boots on and helped him.

Papa let me hold the bags while he put the sand in them.  It took us a long time because the bags were heavy and hard to carry through the mud.  I had a lot of fun and my Mom got out her camera and took some picture of us sandbagging.

Mom said that there was about an inch of mud in the shed and it took her an hour to clean it out.  Luckily it was a nice sunny day and it helped dry everything out.  The damage wasn't to bad and we were all glad that it was all over.   Papa said that it would be a few days before we could drink our water.

Thursday, Day 3, February 5, 1998

On this day we were able to do our regular school schedule and we thought that we didn't have to worry about another flood.  We still watched the news that night to see what the weather was going to do the next day.

Friday, Day 4, February 6, 1998

It rained all day while we worked on our studies.  The water was gone so the mailman could deliver our mail.  I had been waiting all week for my letter to come that would tell me if I made it into Honor Band.  As soon as the mail came I ran outside to get the mail.  My letter had arrived and it told me that I made it into Honor Band.  I was so happy that I started jumping up and down.  During the afternoon, our Mom had some errands to run, so she had our friend Mary come over to watch us.  About 5:00pm I looked outside and I noticed that water was starting to trickle across the road again.  The orchard was full of water and we all went outside to look.

When my Mom and Dad got home we all stood outside and watched the water get closer to our house.  Mary decided to leave before the water got to high.

This time when it flooded the water came in slower than it did the first time.  We decided to stay home this time.  Our power stayed on, so we were able to watch the opening ceremony of the Olympics.  It was kind of neat because is seemed like we were sitting in the middle of a lake.

Before we went to bed my uncle decided that the water was getting to high and we had to shut the power off to the well before the wires got wet.  I kind of wanted to go to Grandma's house but my Mom said that we would be fine and that the water wouldn't get real high.

Saturday, Day 5, February 7, 1998

When I woke up on Saturday morning the water was trickling barely trickling across our driveway and the flood was over.

Later in the morning it started raining and the wind started blowing very hard.  I looked outside and saw a whole bunch of  shingles flying off of the roof.  I told my Dad and he went outside to look at the roof.  He said that a 10' by 10' section of shingles were torn off the roof.

All afternoon the rain came down very hard and the wind blew fiercely.  Of course, in the middle of it all, we had to have a brown-out.

In the late afternoon, after hours of heavy rain, it finally stopped.  My Dad asked our friend Dwayne to come out and help fix our roof.   When Dwayne got here they got started right away because they knew that it was going to rain soon.  The wind was blowing  hard, which made their job difficult.

At about 5.00pm, when Dwayne was about to leave, the water started coming across the road again.  This time when the water came, it got up really high, like the first flood.  We decided to stay home again instead of going to Grandma's house.  We had fun watching the Olympics and, once again, we felt like we were sitting in the middle of a lake.

Sunday, Day 6, February 8, 1998

When we all woke up we thought that the water would be gone, but when we looked outside it was still there.

We still had the well turned off so we went to Grandma's house to take showers.  There was a lot of people that took showers at Grandma's house that day.  We stayed for about three hours and when we went home the water had went down.   This was the last day that it flooded us, but it took a long time for everything to dry out.

This was a week that we will remember for a long time.  The flood left a lot of mud in the backyard and it will take a long time to get rid of it.   Being in a flood when you are a kid is kind of scary, because you are afraid it will get in your house.  It is also kind of exciting, when you find out that it will not get high, of course.  California has had a lot of floods in recent years and a lot of people have lost everything the own and some have even lost their lives.  We survived the Flood of 98 and we hope we will not have to do this again soon!