"Grab checkbooks, credit cards and a change of clothes, fill a bag and we are out of here," I told her as I began placing a pair of shoes, my files and word processor on the second bunk where granddaughter Amy sleeps when visiting the place she describes as "the cabin in the woods."

Hurricane Fran was upon us. She had made landfall near Wilmington, North Carolina, and headed in a straight line for Jewell Hollow. The torrential rains had begun in the night. When we arose Friday morning, the quantity of dense rain crashing upon and around the cabin was uncommon, but nothing in our lives had yet changed. At 9:15 a.m. electric power to the cabin was cut.

"I believe you ought to move the cars," Jeanne said as she entered the bedroom. "The water is starting to spill over into the driveway."

As she stooped to look out the bedroom window, she exclaimed: "Oh, Wow, the drive is a river." The stream which feeds the pond was plunging so much water down the mountain that much of it couldn't get through the drainage pipe into the pond; the excess spilled to the left toward the state road, gushing the length of the driveway, over the stone walls which define it and into the pond. We had never seen such a sight in our thirty years in and around Jewell Hollow. Our twenty yard long driveway was a river.

I was alarmed. I dressed, put on a slicker, a pair of old "moon" boots and walked into the rain. First, I backed my old diesel car as tightly as possible up the slight rise leading to our front door; too late to move the cars to the parking lot through the driveway-river. Next, I set out to scout our risks from the water rising around us.

The rain was falling at a rate of two inches an hour; it would continue at that rate for a total of fourteen hours. I was immediately drenched below the slicker line and began to feel a deep unease at the incredible amount of water that was falling and filling old streams and slashing new ones. I walked slowly toward the pond above us; its excess overflowed into the small stream, engorging it more. I found a spot beside the upper pond where the bank of the stream on the cabin side was more shallow than the remainder of the deeply-dug, cascading route to our pond.

"It could come out of the bank right here," I thought. As I began the short walk back to the cabin, I noticed on my right that the age-old path leading to the back stream had become a small river.

"That's it. We are out of here," I mumbled to myself. The cabin sits on the high point of our small chunk of Blue Ridge rocky forest. We were about to be inundated from both sides, the water crashing through the dog pen and on through our bedroom and out the kitchen door. The image of us, Jeanne and I and the dogs, being swept out of our little cabin terrified me. The deluge beating upon me further fed my fears.

When I returned to the cabin, I phoned a young neighbor who, with his wife and two sons, lives two hundred yards above us off the state road to the right. He drives a four wheel drive pickup truck which, I assumed, could still traverse our driveway (and current river) and we could easily be rescued.

"We need to get out of here, or we'll be trapped," is how I made my plea for assistance. Dave answered that he would drive down immediately. I gathered up the dogs' leashes and a choke collar for Duda. Jeanne had completed filling the travel bag to go with us; in it she had thoughtfully included a bottle of gin for me. Another neighbor had been called. Kathy had built a large house on a relatively flat piece of land on the old Sour farm below us and much further from a stream than our cabin. In addition -- and importantly, Kathy's home had a second story for added safety. We would be welcome.

I went back into the rain to await Dave. He drove up shortly, leaving his truck in the middle of the state road. Dave signalled to me that he would not chance driving into the driveway-river. He and his young son walked through the parking lot facing the state road and approached the stream-now-river.

"I've got a rope," he yelled and walked back to his truck.

He returned with a long boat anchor line neatly tied in a proper nautical manner. It was now clear that Jeanne, the dogs and I would have to escape our flooding threats through -- not over or around -- the now four-foot wide, raging river that once was a passive, pastoral, foot-wide bubbling mountain brook. There were no decisions to be made, no second-guessing, no turning back. I went to the cabin for Jeanne, dogs and bag. I had Duda on a choke collar and leash, and the bag on my shoulder. Jeanne held the smaller Attila The Hun. The dogs were acutely aware of the danger. They responded as ordered and without protest.

We picked our way carefully over the slippery boulders to the riverside, almost exactly below our bedroom door. Davidson flung me the end of the rope. I tied it tightly around a substantial White Oak and flung it back. Dave secured it to a tree on his side of the river.

"I think it would be a better place to cross up there a little way," he said, pointing ten yards above. I again tied the rope to another tree. The rope now formed a triangle.

Jeanne went first. Holding the frightened but very still Tilla in her right hand and arm, as he snuggled into her chest, and hanging onto the rope with her left hand, she plunged in. Jeanne fell as she started across because she couldn't see the rocks and boulders which would normally be stepping stones.

She fell into the raging water up over her waist. Somehow Jeanne had the force of will not to drop Tilla to his death; yet she was able to hang on with her left hand to the rope and propel her feet and legs forward enough that she and the dog could be grabbed and held secure until she and Tilla could scramble up the bank.

I pulled Duda as close as I could to the water's edge and threw her leash across; Dave pulled Duda through the water. Neither dog protested or balked; they sensed they were being conveyed out of harm's way.

I was next. I had it much easier, no dog to hold as I plunged into the white water. My moon boots immediately filled with water, adding to my 240 pounds. I hung on and churned my way across, falling on a large rock on the other side, soaked but safe. I sat on the rock and laboriously got my foot back into a soggy moon boot which had gone astray.

With the dogs safely in the back of the pickup with young Matt, and Jeanne and I crammed into the front with Dave, I told him, "You just saved our lives."

I know well the stream that passes through Kathy's property. It emerges out of Smith pond, the first property on the right up the mountain, falls parallel to the state road, and takes a sharp left turn across from our property line. Normally, it is a very large stream or a small river. Upon our arrival at Kathy's, I wanted to look to attempt to fathom her chances of being flooded, at least through her first floor. Chances were good. Her stream was now acting like a major river, and there was little elevation to her home site. We would have to keep a watch to the South.

Jeanne and I got out of our waterlogged clothes and changed into clothes and shoes that were merely damp. Kathy had no power but, like most of us in Jewell Hollow, kept a cache of candles. A bright, battery-fueled lantern provided most of the light. After I made calls to Jeanne's mother and my sister, the telephone line went dead. It was 11 a.m.

The mood was somber in Kathy's large kitchen. The room was funereally dark, but for the glowing lantern. Kathy had a cheap battery radio tuned to the FM classical music of public radio; I tuned it to an AM talk/news station in Harrisonburg, VA. The AM station had suspended its broadcast schedule for non-stop coverage of the flooding throughout the Shenandoah Valley. The town of Elkton was completely cut off by the rising water.

In our area, highway 211, the main east-west artery through the county was closed beginning at the Shenandoah National Park HQ, a few hundred yards from Jewell Hollow. The north/south highway was also closed through the county, plus hundreds of country roads. Essentially, our county seat, seven miles to the west, was cut off. We knew from experience that the two bridges at the base of the Hollow would be underwater and impassable. We were cut off from further escape. Our only sense of security came from the knowledge that Kathy's second story would be safe, no matter how long the two-inch-an-hour rain continued. Into the afternoon the torrent swept through Jewell Hollow.

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