As we near the first year anniversary of the flood, the newspapers are running stories about what people went through and have been going through in the past 11 months.

Where homes were destroyed, some of the owners are still having to make mortgage payments while they wait to make settlements with the banks, similar to a short sale. If they can't reach an agreement, a year's worth of mortgage payments will be due in a few weeks. Our county is getting FEMA money to buy out properties in floodplains to keep people from rebuilding on them. They are going to pay after-flood prices for it - unimproved land in a flood plain that quite often doesn't have any trees or any topsoil - as opposed to the pre-flood value for lovely mountain property with big trees on the edge of a bubbling stream. That's how it goes.

One lady lost her family cabin in the flood as well as the propane tank, which floated down the river. It was leased from the propane company, and now they want her to pay a couple of thousand dollars for it. Some jurisdictions are requiring that replacement tanks be underground, so there is a shortage of those. Our county hasn't said if they are going to require tanks to be anchored to the ground, and I think that's a great idea. We have one that was threatened by the flooded side stream, and I think one reason it stayed in place was that it was full of product. I don't mind anchoring it, and Mr. Troutbend can figure it out next summer.

Over the past several months consultants have been designing a master plan for restoring our river to health and resiliency, in other words: fixing the flood damage. They estimate a cost of $2.78 million for the area I live in. The total for the river is $204,083,582. This does not include bridges or roads or what the highway department is going to do to make their road sturdier.

Most of the landowners just laugh when they are told these numbers because there is no way they could come up with even the 12.4 - 25% match for grant money to pay for it. One lady said they are going to ignore the recommendation to do a lot of engineering and bury a bunch of rocks on the riverbank. They'll buy some loads of dirt every summer to fill in their missing bank, and it will take about 15 years to get it back. They don't care if it is sturdy enough to survive a big flood.

Not a day goes by that I don't realize how lucky I am that all this damage wasn't where I would be responsible to pay for it. There is that one bad spot where the highway right-of-way supports my access road, and it's certainly important that it get worked on, but hallelujah! it's the highway department's problem.