Dear Santa: I want hip waders for Christmas
The first anniversary of the 2005 New Year’s flood here in Napa is coming up. The paper is doing some follow-up stories on people who were affected and how the flood protection programs are doing. My photo editor brought up the take from that day and I had another look at everything I shot. It brought back some crazy memories.
The most powerful memory was, and still is, how disappointed I was with what I came back with that day. Considering what I was up against — I was the only photographer working that day — I guess I did fairly well. But thinking back on some of the things I didn’t do almost makes me sick to my stomach.
Before the rainy season even started, I looked into getting some hip waders. David Carson at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch emphatically informed me when I interned over there to make sure I had some in the trunk of my car in case I needed them. But I went to check some out at the sporting goods store and they were way more expensive than I could afford, so I never bought any. That turned out to be a big mistake.
The paper has a pair of thigh-high mud boots for crazy weather, but of course I paid no attention to the river levels the night before the flood and failed to grab them beforehand. I woke up the morning of the flood, hearing a lot of commotion outside our house and discovered after my wife went outside to get the paper that our street was flooded — along with the rest of Napa — just a half block down the road.
So I started working right away, just 100 yards from my house, and came away with some stuff that worked, but it was all with a telephoto lens. I was heartbroken that I had no hip waders or even the paper’s thigh-high mud boots to get close to people with a wide angle lens as they battled the waist high water. Bryan Patrick of the Sacramento Bee had a great wide angle shot from the flooding that day in the Delta. Michael Macor of the San Francisco Chronicle had a nice shot from downtown Napa with a wide angle lens as well.
To this day I feel disappointed about the whole thing. The biggest flood in Napa in 20 years and here I was only partly prepared. Live and learn, I guess.