2005 Flood Victim Dedication Traditional Cache

This cache is dedicated to the victims of the Santa Clara River Flood of 2005.
Our house wasn't one of those that parished or was damaged by the river or the raw sewage gushing up through their drain pipes, but our neighbors and many homes around us were.
It was tremendous how so many people in the city pulled together to help complete strangers save their homes. Volunteers were scrambling through house gathers and saving homeowners possessions seconds before the river tore their homes away.
When we moved to this area, we hear that the river gets big sometimes, but we never imaged anything like this. For those who use to go to Mathis Park and cross that one bridge next to the walking path. I really believe that that bridge helped to save the homes in our neighborhood. It got wedged up along the southwest side of the river and caught debris that created a great deterrent for a long period time. This pushed the water towards the other bank. Sure we still had to do a lot of sand bagging as the water rose even higher, but without that bridge I think even more homes would have been lost. By the way, that bridge was later dug out of the river down by the golf course and Baad Daata hid a cache on it.
As you can see from the river today things are slowly, but surely starting to return to somewhat normal for the community to enjoy, such as this other park that sustained a lot of damage and has recently opened. We are still waiting for Mathis Park to offically open.