The thing about a flood, a forest fire, a famine… when you’re in it, you are hyper-conscious of two things: whether it’s getting worse or whether it’s getting better.

You could certainly argue that your primary concern is for the welfare of the people you love and the property you own (absolutely in that order), but trend-spotting becomes a serious preoccupation. After all, if the fire is abating, you can stop clearing brush and focus on feeding your family. If the famine is easing, you can stop stealing food and start planting seeds.

In my case, if the water is receding, you can stop filling sandbags and turn your attention to pumping water.

Last weekend we very nearly lost our house. The highest recorded elevation of the Milk River through my valley is 33.2 feet. That was back in 1952, when the combination of ice jams and snowmelt pushed the river so far out of its banks that it swallowed entire towns, stranded most valley farms and prompted years of levee building and flood prevention efforts. To put this elevation in context, flood stage is 25 feet.

So when the river started to rise, we took it seriously. On Saturday morning flood water pushed across the flat alfalfa fields around our house, and then topped a dike (see Fighting the Flood). At one point the water rose 2 inches every hour. Our low-slung house would be flooded. We started moving equipment, decking it on the elevated county road, where it looked like the aftermath of an Ozark’s divorce.