The Deadly Nature of the Creek Rising

Perhaps it is time to explain the significance of our blog name "If The Creek Don't Rise". As you can see from the photograph, it is a very significant matter and a situation that people living almost anywhere else cannot comprehend.

.

The photo shows a semi-truck sized vehicle which tried to cross a running wash. This was one of the water haulers vital to the oil field and these contractors are under heavy pressure to perform their promised committments. It can be a lose/lose decision to press on if fate is not on your side that day. Then it is the rock and a hard place world. Maybe the driver didn't flip the coin just so that day and decided to cross waters which were probably running well less than a foot deep.

.

Again, it is hard to comprehend the dynamics at work here. As one neighbor described it, the infrequently running waters out here in the desert become flowing 'liquid sand'. If you have ever spent any time at an ocean shoreline, try recalling standing in the near skirts of the ocean's waters and having the waves roll over your feet. You waited for their retreat and felt a vertigo as the retreating wave undermined your footing in the sand. Now picture a never-ending flow of sand and water. A vehicle caught in the run will find itself undermined by the fickle sands beneath as they join the stream of thick waters rushing by. I have seen many photos of nothing more than the very tops of four tires jutting out of what looks like a benign and shallow highway of sand remaining after a run. But there was always an entire truck or car inverted and lying in state beneath them. The insurance outcome is usually a complete write-off. So ... when the creek rises here, we pay attention.