Napa Valley Register - Praise for those involved with Napa Creek Flood Project
August 7, 2013
By Linda Kerr (guest opinion)
I live near Napa Creek in a house built in the early 1900s. My house has been home to three generations of my family since 1941. Ironically, my grandparents purchased this house to escape flooding.
Their decision to move to this neighborhood occurred after a particularly bad flood along the river. During that flood, my grandparents, along with my mother who was 5 years old, were rescued in a row boat from their home on Napa Street near Soscol Avenue.
They stayed with friends on Seminary across from the home that they would purchase and where I now live. They left their home on Napa Street for drier ground. Little did they know that, in future decades, Napa Creek would see more flooding than the Napa River and what they perceived as a flood-free neighborhood would be no more.
I have lived in the home purchased by my grandparents since 1996, and, like many other longtime neighbors, small business owners, and commercial property owners, I can attest to the frequent flash floods that have inundated our neighborhoods and the northern downtown business district for decades.
One flood after another tore through our area. With every rainy season came the dread, the apprehension: Would there be another flood (sometimes two)? It was no longer pleasant to lie in bed at night listening to the falling rain. Rain meant potential flooding and sandbagging and putting up flood defenses once again and the potential for significant loss.
And the flash flood nature of the Creek left little. if any. time to prepare. Our financial bottom lines were at stake, but more importantly, our safety and health were at stake.
In Harm's Way, Citizens for Napa Creek Neighborhood Flood Protection, was formed in 2006, after we endured the worst flood to strike our homes and businesses in recent memory. Once again, muddy, debris-laden, polluted flood water raged through our neighborhood and business district, but this time with ferocity that we had not experienced before.
Bottom line â€" this was not a sustainable situation emotionally or financially, and we set out to do something about it.
We knew our chances of flooding would be lessened significantly by the Napa Creek Flood Project, but the projected timeline for constructing this project kept changing and slipping. We began advocating for the design to be funded and started, and we advocated to advance the construction timetable and for the allocation of construction funding.
After this 6 1/2 year effort, we were thrilled to join with others on July 29 to celebrate the completion of the Napa Creek portion of the Flood Project. In Harm's Way offers the following heartfelt recognition to those that made this project possible.
We are thankful for all of the individuals and special interest groups, city- and county-elected officials and staffs, and especially to our federal representatives and the Army Corps of Engineers for working together with our community for decades to develop a first-of-its-kind, environmentally-sensitive, functional yet aesthetically pleasing new concept in flood prevention.
We thank the individuals that worked on the Measure A campaign and our community's support of Measure A, which allowed the Project to move forward.
We especially thank Rep. Mike Thompson and Sens. Feinstein and Boxer, for their continuing support of this project and for their efforts to secure annual federal funding. We deeply appreciate their commitment to this project.
Without stimulus funding, the Napa Creek Flood Project would not have been constructed. Thank you to President Obama and Congress for making this money available.
“Thank you” to the Napa City Council and the flood board for voting to support our advocacy efforts and to their staffs, and the Corps' staff, for making this project a reality.
And a very big “thank you” to everyone who supported In Harm's Way. You wrote letters and emails, made phone calls, signed petitions, paid for supplies, and attended and spoke at meetings. We could not have done it without you.
Those affected by Napa Creek flooding have much to be thankful for, but there is still work to be done. When your home or business is flooding, it really doesn't matter where the water is coming from. You just want it to stop. That is why we believe it is vitally important that the Napa River Flood Project is completed in its entirety as soon as possible.
Too many homes, businesses and lives have been turned upside down for too long by a natural disaster that is within our ability to prevent. We hope that our community will celebrate the completion of the entire Napa River Flood Project very soon.
It is difficult to convey the benefit this project has already had, and will continue to have, on our lives. In December, only two months after the completion of the Napa Creek Flood Project, a flood was avoided. The project worked as designed and promised and we could not be more grateful. Thank you one and all for lifting this tremendous burden from our shoulders.
Their decision to move to this neighborhood occurred after a particularly bad flood along the river. During that flood, my grandparents, along with my mother who was 5 years old, were rescued in a row boat from their home on Napa Street near Soscol Avenue.
They stayed with friends on Seminary across from the home that they would purchase and where I now live. They left their home on Napa Street for drier ground. Little did they know that, in future decades, Napa Creek would see more flooding than the Napa River and what they perceived as a flood-free neighborhood would be no more.
I have lived in the home purchased by my grandparents since 1996, and, like many other longtime neighbors, small business owners, and commercial property owners, I can attest to the frequent flash floods that have inundated our neighborhoods and the northern downtown business district for decades.
One flood after another tore through our area. With every rainy season came the dread, the apprehension: Would there be another flood (sometimes two)? It was no longer pleasant to lie in bed at night listening to the falling rain. Rain meant potential flooding and sandbagging and putting up flood defenses once again and the potential for significant loss.
And the flash flood nature of the Creek left little. if any. time to prepare. Our financial bottom lines were at stake, but more importantly, our safety and health were at stake.
In Harm's Way, Citizens for Napa Creek Neighborhood Flood Protection, was formed in 2006, after we endured the worst flood to strike our homes and businesses in recent memory. Once again, muddy, debris-laden, polluted flood water raged through our neighborhood and business district, but this time with ferocity that we had not experienced before.
Bottom line â€" this was not a sustainable situation emotionally or financially, and we set out to do something about it.
We knew our chances of flooding would be lessened significantly by the Napa Creek Flood Project, but the projected timeline for constructing this project kept changing and slipping. We began advocating for the design to be funded and started, and we advocated to advance the construction timetable and for the allocation of construction funding.
After this 6 1/2 year effort, we were thrilled to join with others on July 29 to celebrate the completion of the Napa Creek portion of the Flood Project. In Harm's Way offers the following heartfelt recognition to those that made this project possible.
We are thankful for all of the individuals and special interest groups, city- and county-elected officials and staffs, and especially to our federal representatives and the Army Corps of Engineers for working together with our community for decades to develop a first-of-its-kind, environmentally-sensitive, functional yet aesthetically pleasing new concept in flood prevention.
We thank the individuals that worked on the Measure A campaign and our community's support of Measure A, which allowed the Project to move forward.
We especially thank Rep. Mike Thompson and Sens. Feinstein and Boxer, for their continuing support of this project and for their efforts to secure annual federal funding. We deeply appreciate their commitment to this project.
Without stimulus funding, the Napa Creek Flood Project would not have been constructed. Thank you to President Obama and Congress for making this money available.
“Thank you” to the Napa City Council and the flood board for voting to support our advocacy efforts and to their staffs, and the Corps' staff, for making this project a reality.
And a very big “thank you” to everyone who supported In Harm's Way. You wrote letters and emails, made phone calls, signed petitions, paid for supplies, and attended and spoke at meetings. We could not have done it without you.
Those affected by Napa Creek flooding have much to be thankful for, but there is still work to be done. When your home or business is flooding, it really doesn't matter where the water is coming from. You just want it to stop. That is why we believe it is vitally important that the Napa River Flood Project is completed in its entirety as soon as possible.
Too many homes, businesses and lives have been turned upside down for too long by a natural disaster that is within our ability to prevent. We hope that our community will celebrate the completion of the entire Napa River Flood Project very soon.
It is difficult to convey the benefit this project has already had, and will continue to have, on our lives. In December, only two months after the completion of the Napa Creek Flood Project, a flood was avoided. The project worked as designed and promised and we could not be more grateful. Thank you one and all for lifting this tremendous burden from our shoulders.
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