The Beaver

When I was a kid, my parents loved to go hiking up the mountain trails. I was pretty excited about it too, because hiking in the outdoors offered the possibility of catching a breath near a river, or a small stream of water.
While the adults were resting, I was always jumping in the water, collecting leaves, wood bits, rocks. I was then turning those improvised material into the most majestic piece of engineering: a dam!

For more than thirty years, my dam-building skills have been pretty much useless. Until today!

Today, after a terrible summer storm, the river next to our house broke, and a flash flood took over the little town we are currently based.

I spent more than three hours today with mud up my legs, building improvised dams to limit the damage to the houses.

This is me holding the barrier I build against the wooden door. What it looks like a river, well, that’s supposed to be a road.

There was some damage, at the end, but just a few gallons of water actually entered our house. The nearby houses had up to 60cm (2ft) of mud inside.

It was intense but beside some inevitable economic damage, no one was hurt.

It was my first experience in a flooding, thanks mom and dad for letting me play the beaver when we went hiking!