Sunshine finally poured down on Snohomish County.
Wednesday’s beautiful light found people surrounded by floodwaters working hard to help their neighbors, friends, families and strangers.
Dairy farmer John Deck knew he would have a busy day, even before the sun came up.
The flood swamping his land had forced him to turn off the electric milking machines, otherwise he’d have 450 electrocuted cows.
He hadn’t been able to milk them for hours. And they needed milking as soon as possible, otherwise they could get sick or stop producing milk.
Just as he was pondering his next step, friends and neighbors started showing up at the Deck Dairy Farm, in the Tualco Valley south of Monroe.
They helped Deck, 65, move half his herd to a neighbor’s dairy farm, and to another one in Sultan. By early afternoon, it was safe for him to turn his machines back on, and between all three farms, every cow got milked.
Fred Zylstra of Snohomish arrived at Deck’s farm with his wife, Christine, daughters Hannah and Emily, and nephew Carl Trebino.
“Just stopped by without calling,” said Zylstra, Deck’s longtime friend.
Anne Lowe, a Future Farmers of America adviser, also turned up, bringing five Monroe High School students with her.
They joined forces and cleaned up wet sawdust in Deck’s milk barns.
“We just knew farmers were here” in the flooded area, Lowe said. Helping farmers gives students joy and teaches them how difficult it is to run a farm, she said.
“It helps kids have a sense of community,” she said.
Monroe High School sophomore Christina Leid, 16, didn’t know the Deck family, but volunteered to clean the barns. “We needed to help out,” she said.
Today, Lowe plans to take students to other local farms hit by flooding. About 45 teens have volunteered to help, she said.
The community spirit wasn’t limited to Monroe.
In Snohomish, 17 high school students from Snohomish Fire Explorer Post No. 444 also found themselves on the front lines.
They were dismissed from school early on Tuesday and spent more than 12 hours filling and stacking 8,000 sandbags in town.
Part of the explorer post’s volunteer crew piled up sandbags at the Ebey Slough dike.
“They have all said they have never been so sore in their life,” said Heide Savidge, lead adviser for the post.
Service organizations also played a role in helping people in Stanwood.
Reid Schwartz of Oak Harbor spent most of his waking hours this week at a Red Cross shelter in the Stanwood High School gym.
Schwartz worked alongside his 17-year-old son, Reid Schwartz Jr., and about 30 other volunteers from Snohomish and Island counties. They provided security, checked in visitors and dealt with the logistics of housing 150 residents from a nearby nursing home at the shelter.
Boy Scouts unfolded cots, Haggen grocery store and Costco donated bags of cereal and bottles of apple juice, and the Stanwood School District contributed space, buses, flashlights and janitors.
“Everyone worked together,” Schwartz said. “It was one of the best team efforts I’ve ever been a part of.”
Reporter Eric Stevick contributed to this report.
Reporter Yoshiaki Nohara: 425-339-3029 or ynohara@ heraldnet.com.
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