Paradise ponders, floods and snow stoppers edition...

Paradise ponders, floods and snow stoppers edition...  On Thursday morning, before the latest snow melted, I snapped the photo at right.  It shows our garage with a bit of snow on its roof, and if you squint hard you can see that there's a (new) piece of metal extending horizontally, about a foot above the gutter.  That's a “snow stopper” for standing seam steel roofs, invented by one of the employees (Tyler) of the roofer who installed all my roofing.  When he described it to me, I was a bit skeptical of its efficacy – so I had him install one on my garage (my worst snow falling-off-the-roof problem) as an experiment.  If it works, I told him, I have several other places that I'd add it to.

Well, based on the first test – admittedly an easy one, as we only got a half inch of snow – it's working exactly as he told me it would.  The snow is stopped in its tracks, and only a little bit escapes through the inch or so high open area underneath it.  That open area also allows the melted snow trickle through into the gutter.  We'll see how it does with a heavy snow, but for the moment I'm much encouraged.  I'm going to love it if this really does keep the giant piles of snow from forming right in front of my garage door!

Debbie and I took a drive up Blacksmith Fork Canyon this morning, mainly to see the river.  It's just barely above flood stage right now.  The muddy river is violently boiling through normally sedate rapids.  There are a dozen or so spots where the river is over its banks and onto fields or pastures.  There's some visible damage – bank erosion, trees toppled, etc. – but less than I'd expect for the power of the water we see.  That foot bridge that I snapped a photo of a week ago is gone with nary a trace – even the abutments, such as they were, have vanished.