Flood

Flood

When I found out that I was coming to Kansas for a few months, I tried to mentally prepare myself for the change in geography. I expected lots of open plains, maybe some rolling hills, some cold wind and possibly even a tornado or two. If I was a bet’n man, I’d say that say that the chance of witnessing a flood while I was here was slim to none. Today, I would have had to pay big dividends on that bet, for I not only saw that flood, I was almost swept away in the raging waters. Was it because I was training in a dry creekbed that was suddenly filled with melt water from the receding snow? Nope. Was it due to a torrential downpour from a freak storm? Not that either. Was it because a senior NCO hung his clothes on the sprinkler system on the second floor of my building which set off the fire alarm and a shower of water the flooded most of the second floor and part of the first? Bingo!

Of course this is a freak thing, but I thought it was common sense not to do stuff like that. Sprinkler heads are for putting out fires, not hanging your jacket on. Everyone received a briefing when we first got these barracks to leave the sprinkler heads alone, plus I thought it was just common knowledge not to be stupid. I must be mistaken. All I know is that I came back from doing PT in the morning and my personal hygiene time was interrupted by alarms, sirens and a muddy river flowing down the hall. Next thing I knew I was scurrying out the door to a muster point with most of my uniform on and weapons in tow to stand out in the cold waiting for the fire truck to show. Luckily, I didn’t get much damage. Most of my stuff is put away and for the most part, the water stayed on the south end of the building and I’m on the north end. We’re not sure what is going to happen to that individual who flooded our building due to negligence, but I can tell you that there are a lot of people, especially those with rooms under him and those who have to pull fire guard detail while they fix the system, that would like to have a private word or two with him behind the wood shed.

Of course I didn’t get a picture of it happening because we weren’t allowed in the building for a long time, and I also didn’t get a picture of the giant dehumidifiers that were placed in the rooms of the people who had 4 inches of water on their floor. That must be fun to have in the room. Kind of like sleeping in a sauna, inside a jumbo jet engine.