LIVING IN THE VALLEY
We had been living in our valley for sixteen months when we first realized the dangers that could exist in the surrounding hills and threaten our very survival.
(0) [B] Until that time, we had felt safe and sheltered in our valley below the protecting hills.
Soon snow began to fall. Within a day it lay some 15cm deep. (1) But on the neighboring heights the snow was much deeper and stayed for longer. Up there the wind blasted fiercely. Deep in our valley, we felt only sudden gusts of wind; trees swayed but the branches held firm.
And yet we knew that there was reason for us to worry. The snow and wind were certainly inconvenient but they did not really trouble us great. (2) It reminded us of what could have occurred if circumstances had been different, if the flow of water from the hills had not, many years before, been controlled, held back by a series of dams.
In a short time, the snow started to melt. Day after day, we watched furious clouds pile up high over the hills to the west. Sinister grey clouds extended over the valleys. (3) We had seen enough of the sky; now we began to watch the river, which every day was becoming fuller and wilder.
The snow was gradually washed away as more and more rain streamed from the clouds, but high up in the hills the reservoir was filling and was fast approaching danger level. And then it happened – for the 1st time in years the reservoir overflowed. (4) .
The river seemed maddened as the waters poured almost horizontally down to its lower stretches. Just a couple of meters from our cottage, the stream seemed wild beneath the bridge. (5) For three days we prayed that it would stay below its wall. Fortunately, our prayers were answered as the dam held and the waters began to subside.