Flood ushered in front lawn rafting for affected kids

DAWSON CITY - Liz Woods has never seen this much ice in her yard in the 15 years she has lived on the creek side of the Rock Creek Road.

DAWSON CITY - Liz Woods has never seen this much ice in her yard in the 15 years she has lived on the creek side of the Rock Creek Road.

The lived-in portion of her house is well above any water damage that might occur, but this year she’s got tons of ice on her lawn and a decent-sized wading pool on the lower sections of her yard.

Her driveway is completely blocked. In Rock Creek on Monday, her telephone and Internet access were still out of service.

At Henderson’s Corner, the Vogt family’s home was surrounded by water. Jack and Lucy Vogt cut holes in the plastic of one of their greenhouses so the water would flow though. The other one was high enough to be safe, though there was water at the steps of their house.

The water continued to flow next door, where Sonya Stephenson said it flooded her yard from the driveway back to her front yard.

“It would have been over the top of your rubber boots, and we’ve got a big hole in our driveway,” she said Monday.

Their house is high enough to have been safe, and the water continued around to the back of their property.

“We got nothing compared to Rock Creek.”

Jeff Stephenson, a member of the Rock Creek Fire Department, said he believes Rock Creek endured the worst flooding he had seen in many years.

The Stephenson kids thought it was great fun and went rafting in their flooded yard.

“They rafted from the top of driveway all the way down.”