Strawberry Point

I googled for pictures of Gus and for some reason that palm tree pix came up. So I posted it last week as a joke. Back to reality: Originally the area was called "Strawberry Point" because of the abundance of wild strawberries that grow there. The city seal is a strawberry. I actually like the name Strawberry Point better than the present name, which was assigned because of an error interpreting an early map.

Trivia: The State of Alaska is as large as the combined area of all the States east of the Mississippi River.

Pseudo Names

The town is often called the "Banana Belt of Alaska" or "Baja Alaska" due to the warm ocean currents that make the weather much more mild than one would expect. That fact is a pretty closely guarded secret by the locals. The town has at least one other name too. I'll cover that one next week.

I thought I'd change the day to day monotony of the header photo.
This picture is an aerial view of the Salmon River in Gus. The property is about an inch in from the left edge about 1/3 of the way down from the top in the picture. (Hope I'm not boring you with too much of this stuff.)

Repairs

After ten days the flood repairs are about finished. The new carpet is installed. Looks very nice. Makes the recital room look completely different. About all I need to do yet is clean the carpet in part of downstairs. At least the store is presentable enough to show again.

The news/weather people said we were suppose to get 1-4 inches of rain between last night and this evening. They billed the storm as the largest October storm in 4 decades. I made elaborate preparations at the store and house. In our rain gauge we got.... zero, zip, none, nada. Reminds me of the boy who cried wolf.

Flood progress

I filed an insurance claim for the flood damage figuring I'd let the insurance company take care of dealing with the city for reimbursment. The adjuster came up with way more damage than I envisioned. Us getting in there early with a wet-vac and fans saved the floor and prevented mildew or this would have been much worse. The particle board cabinets are history. The water causes the glue to fall apart. The water only wicked to about 1/4 of the carpet, but the carpet can't be saved requiring the whole room to be re-carpeted. Drywall and paint damage down below caused him to authorize the whole ceiling be painted even though less than ¼ of it got damaged. All that without any prodding by me. I mentioned I need the building presentable in case someone wants to look at it so the adjuster gave me a voucher and told me to get a contractor and get going. I asked if it was ok to do the work myself since I built the building and am essentially unemployed. He said yes to that. Doing it myself I get contractor wages to fix the damage. So the adversity has turned into a blessing; our mourning into dancing. Doesn't that sound like the Lord?

What a Difference a Day Makes

I painted on the exterior of the store this morning. When I arrived back home the store neighbor called and said he saw water coming through the back wall of the store. I asked the neighbor to turn off the water to our building. Last week the City broke our water line and hooked us up temporarily, but bypassed the pressure regulator to do so. That meant excess pressure went direct into the store. I figured a line had ruptured due to the pressure. When I arrived I feared I would see water running out the front door. Nothing showed as I pulled into the parking lot. We went inside. So far so good. I walked toward the bathrooms. The ceiling in the back room was wet and dripping in a few places. Upstairs about 200 sq feet of carpet was saturated in the vicinity of the cabinets in the recital room. If the neighbor had not called who knows how much damage would have been done. Mom and I quickly bought a wet/dry vac and picked up our floor fans and headed back to the store, vac'd up what we could, pulled back saturated carpet, and turned on our portable fans. I'm just glad the neighbor called when he did!