David White's Romney sheep are seen inside of his barn Wednesday afternoon in Centralia.
A line of Romney sheep look on inside of David White's barn Wednesday afternoon in Centralia.
When this photo was taken in the aftermath of the Flood of 2007, David White said he had not decided whether to name the sheep Lukcy, Hope or Darwin. White has raised sheep since he was a boy, starting in 1953, and said he found consolation in the fact that one animal from that genetic line of sheep survived the devastating flood.
A beam of light peeks through an opening in a barn on a huddled group of Romney sheep Wednesday afternoon in Centralia.
David White still doesn’t know how one sheep managed to survive when the Chehalis River swallowed up the family ranch in Doty back in December 2007.
She was from a flock that traced directly back to his parents’ original stock, and White had been tending the family sheep personally since 1953. When the river rose to unprecedented levels, the other 55 sheep in the flock drowned in the barn. It took two days for the water to recede enough for anyone to return.
“When we got out there everything was covered in mud,” remembered White just days after the 10-year anniversary of the flood passed this week. “I crawled out there to the back corner of the barn and they looked like walruses because they were all bloated and covered in mud. And then, a little white head popped out.”
White suspects the animal — which he named “Hope” in a 2012 Chronicle article but has also been referred to as “Lucky” — was forced to stand on the drowned bodies of her kin in order to keep her head above the rising tide.
“The cleanup went on and on. There’s one barn that still has mud in it,” said White. He added that he has no intention of cleaning it out either, explaining, “I’ll probably never put sheep back out there.”
White’s decision to abandon those lowland pastures has as much to do with the prevailing risk of flooding each year as the bad memories that linger on the farm. Part of the extensive cleanup process was the burial of his drowned flock. He said that workers came out with a backhoe and lime and trenched out a mass grave for the bulk of his family flock. The spot can be seen on the ridgeline across from the house, and White says he sometimes catches himself staring as the painful memories come flooding back.
“It happens less over time, but every once in awhile when I look across there I will think of them,” said White, who strives to maintain perspective on his losses. “Like I told the kids at the time, in some parts of the world this is how you bury your family. The pain and the grief is just too much, you dig a big hole and cover it all up.”
Immediately after the flood, White told a reporter from The Chronicle that he found consolation in the fact that at least one animal from the genetic line survived the flood.
Later, White had two more reasons to be thankful when the surviving sheep delivered a pair of twins. Those first two lambs, born exactly three months after the flood, were named Destiny and Darwin, according to a 2012 article in The Chronicle.
White says the surviving sheep lived for a few years after that, although through the chaos nobody ever knew exactly how old she was.
Today, White keeps a small flock of purebred Romney sheep that are direct descendants of the surviving sheep, including daughters, granddaughters and great-granddaughters. They are tucked away safely up on Seminary Hill in Centralia where White has owned a home since before the flood of 2007.
Offering up another bit of hard earned perspective, White added, “We were lucky because we had a dry place to come back to while we cleaned up afterward.”
