Close to Home: Notes from a floodplain

The streets and driveways of the lower Russian River are still covered in boot-sucking silt. Walking just off Main Street in Guerneville, piles of debris spill into the road. It's that time of the year - actually, that time of the decade - when strangers ask one question: Why do we live here?

We live here because living among the redwoods is like living inside the world's greatest cathedral. We live here because there's no better feeling on earth than floating on a river in summertime. We live here because the community is the most beautiful, colorful, crazy conglomeration of people you can imagine, from drop-dead gorgeous drag queen nuns to the bearded drivers of lifted pickups with chainsaws leaned against the tailgate. From gentle tie-dye-clad artists to busy working moms rushing through school drop-off with a toddler in tow. We come together in this challenging place. And we have our own challenges, too.

Sometimes, we live here because we have nowhere else to go. Maybe someday a doctoral student will draft an academic treatise about how the cycle of flooding contributes to the cycle of poverty. About how the local workers who barely make ends meet always live in the lowest parts of the floodplain in non-elevated homes and trailers, because that's all they can afford. About how the working poor cannot possibly afford flood insurance. About how some of them lose everything at 35 feet of flood height (and this one was 45).

Maybe they'll write about how even middle-class floodplain residents are unable to pass their households on to future generations. They can pass on the house, maybe, but instead of handing over that well-loved sofa to the graduating college student, they are forced to buy their own household all over again, once every decade or so. And many things cannot be replaced: the kids' kindergarten drawings that were lost in 1986 - or was it '95, or '97?

Maybe someone will study the RVs in the “campgrounds” that are full of year-round residents. These RVs serve as homes for so long that eventually, like traditional homes, they stop moving. When they stop moving and the river rises, the home is destroyed, and the owner becomes homeless - another tent by the river to be counted in our annual census of the shelterless.

Here along the river, we may hurt but we rarely complain. We walk by torn-up pieces of homes. Drywall, wet and covered in mud. Ruined grandfather clocks, cat scratching posts, record collections, desk chairs, wall paintings, wedding photos, the treadmill someone used to feel guilty about not using often enough.

Those who escaped this time - the water a few inches below the main floor, just creeping up the top step - breathe a sigh of relief and roll up their sleeves to help their neighbors. We know the Russian River will be back; we just don't know when.

But we do know one thing: The only thing that rises faster and stronger than the river are her people. Our businesses will reopen. Our households will again fill with the necessities of life. We are better together, stronger together, and we'll pull together to take care of one another.

Still, I have heard from a number of people who have lost everything - both their homes and their jobs - and have no way of recovering on their own.

If you want to help these flood survivors, please consider donating to the United Way of the Wine Country's Flood Relief Fund helping residents and community recovery) or the New Vision Foundation's Small Business Flood Relief Fund (helping small businesses reopen and overseen by the Santa Rosa Metro Chamber, Russian River and Sebastopol Chambers of Commerce, in partnership with the Economic Development Board and myself).

Checks to the New Vision Foundation can be dropped off or mailed to the Santa Rosa Metro Chamber at 50 Old Courthouse Square, Suite 110, Santa Rosa, 95404, and donations to the United Way Flood Relief Fund can be made online at unitedwaywinecountry.org.

Lynda Hopkins represents the 5th District on the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors.

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