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- #51
We are indeed privileged to live in a beautiful place, and are constantly thankful for the beauty that surrounds us 
There are, as everywhere else, neighborhoods and individual homes where things are not as neatly kept up or downright run-down, but I guess we are a pretty tidy lot come to think of it. I currently live in an early 80s neighborhood and there are only a few homes where the lawn isn't mowed very often. I used to live in a late 1950s neighborhood though where there was true pride of ownership on our street and we as (then) young parents of toddlers felt a need to do likewise and we thus learned a lot about gardening and yard care from our neighbors. I think it's probably something like the thrust of the Habitat for Humanity movement--if you fix something up, everyone else takes note and follows suit
Trim, that specific creek/wash in those latest photos is actually man-made, it was put in to drain the land that the neighborhood was built on--originally there were several small natural wet and dry creeks that would fill as needed. This particular weather incident (over 100mm of rain in less than 12 hours if I remember correctly) coupled with the spring run-off, was it's biggest test ever and it turned out to have saved the rest of the neighborhood (quite wide on each side of the creek) and the ONLY damage happened to the homes directly adjacent to the creek. The plan worked, they just didn't leave quite enough verge for the closest homes. I think that neighborhood is at most 20 years old.
Although most people unaffected by the flooding have "moved on" with their lives, many people are still volunteering and working together to get everything up and running. Already so many affected areas of downtown Calgary and neighborhoods along the rivers look as though nothing ever happened to them (until you go into many of the homes). The yards and gardens are cleaned up and all the refuse from inside taken away--there were huge piles on the street for the first week after the flooding. City garbage collection crews worked overtime and all that suffered was recycling collection in unaffected areas for the two weeks following the flooding.
I'm very proud of all my "neighbors" and my city
There are, as everywhere else, neighborhoods and individual homes where things are not as neatly kept up or downright run-down, but I guess we are a pretty tidy lot come to think of it. I currently live in an early 80s neighborhood and there are only a few homes where the lawn isn't mowed very often. I used to live in a late 1950s neighborhood though where there was true pride of ownership on our street and we as (then) young parents of toddlers felt a need to do likewise and we thus learned a lot about gardening and yard care from our neighbors. I think it's probably something like the thrust of the Habitat for Humanity movement--if you fix something up, everyone else takes note and follows suit
Trim, that specific creek/wash in those latest photos is actually man-made, it was put in to drain the land that the neighborhood was built on--originally there were several small natural wet and dry creeks that would fill as needed. This particular weather incident (over 100mm of rain in less than 12 hours if I remember correctly) coupled with the spring run-off, was it's biggest test ever and it turned out to have saved the rest of the neighborhood (quite wide on each side of the creek) and the ONLY damage happened to the homes directly adjacent to the creek. The plan worked, they just didn't leave quite enough verge for the closest homes. I think that neighborhood is at most 20 years old.
Although most people unaffected by the flooding have "moved on" with their lives, many people are still volunteering and working together to get everything up and running. Already so many affected areas of downtown Calgary and neighborhoods along the rivers look as though nothing ever happened to them (until you go into many of the homes). The yards and gardens are cleaned up and all the refuse from inside taken away--there were huge piles on the street for the first week after the flooding. City garbage collection crews worked overtime and all that suffered was recycling collection in unaffected areas for the two weeks following the flooding.
I'm very proud of all my "neighbors" and my city
