As August approached, the weather became hotter and hotter, and it rained every few days. The fields, ditches and rivers were filled with water.
The township has also established a flood prevention command center, and each village has someone responsible for supervising and guiding flood prevention work. The flood prevention responsibility system has been implemented in all 216 rivers, dams and ponds in the township, requiring comprehensive inspections of the safety of these water bodies to ensure the safety of people's lives and property.
Sun Zongyuan and three people from the Construction Office were responsible for Xiaofushan Village in the Fushan work area. The village was close to Kun River. There were three earth dams in the ravine, which stored 20,000 to 30,000 cubic meters of water and irrigated the surrounding 500 to 600 acres of arable land.
Sun Zongyuan is mainly responsible for flood prevention work in Kunhe River, and the three people in the Construction Office are each responsible for an earth dam.
Sun Zongyu actually doesn’t quite understand how to prevent floods. Does professional knowledge need to be used to inspect the quality and safety of rivers or ponds?
Township officials are like a jack of all trades. They have to carry out the arrangements made by their superiors, even if they don’t understand them.
Sun Zongyuan carefully read the flood prevention document issued by the township three times. Apart from the responsibilities, it seemed that there was no mention of how to identify problems, how to solve problems, what emergency plans were there, etc.
Nowadays, rural governance is still rough and there is no emergency plan. If something happens, being able to ask the people to hide and report the situation to the superiors is considered fulfilling one's duty.
Sun Zongyu, along with six people from the Construction Office, the work area, and the village secretary and director, carefully inspected the Kun River section in Xiaofushan Village. The Kun River is about 800 meters long in Xiaofushan Village. The riverbed is more than three meters below the ground, of which two meters are stone embankments, and the upper one meter or so is a high slope compacted with loess. The riverbed is all stone, and the water is crystal clear.
I asked the village party secretary, whose surname was Zhang and who was about fifty-five or fifty-six years old. He said that since he was a child, the river water had always reached a height of forty centimeters below the stone embankment. After saying that, he jumped in and pointed to the traces of floods in previous years and said:
You see, up to here, there is no sign of flooding above.
Sun Zongyuan also felt that Secretary Zhang was right, but that didn't mean there would be no floods. If it didn't happen in ten years, what about a hundred years? A thousand years?
Finally, it was confirmed that there are two hidden danger points on both sides of Kun River:
If flooding occurs, the ten-meter-long Kunhe Bridge must be closed to pedestrians and vehicles on both sides. Warning signs and barriers must be posted on both sides of the bridge, and village cadres must be assigned to patrol the bridge during heavy rain and flooding.
The water diversion gates on the north bank of the Kun River must be greased and practiced to ensure that the gates can be raised or lowered smoothly and in a timely manner, and to ensure that when the water level of the Kun River is high, the river water will not enter the farmland through the gates and cause the crops to be flooded.
The group went to inspect the three earth dams again. They were all built in the 1950s and 1960s. The silt at the bottom of the dam was very deep, and the water storage capacity of the pond was actually not very large. However, the water inside was now close to one meter from the top of the dam body. The spillway on the side was constantly discharging water, and the pond was full.
At noon, we had lunch at the home of the village branch secretary. The dry food was pot-cakes, and the dish was stewed pork slices with water radish. Secretary Zhang was very enthusiastic and insisted on killing a chicken. Sun Zongyuan stopped him and fried a large plate of free-range eggs. The large amount of green onions and ginger mixed with the yellow eggs made people very appetizing.
Old Zhang took out two bottles of dry He Erqu and poured a bowl for each of them. Sun Zongyuan really didn't want to drink it, but he couldn't resist Secretary Zhang's persuasion:
"Village Chief Sun, our village is poor, and I usually drink loose wine from a gourd. Today, since you're here, I asked my child's mother to buy this bottle of wine from the store. You have to give me some respect no matter what!"
When Sun Zongyuan heard that, he had nothing else to say. He drank three bowls of about six taels of white wine. The wine was not very good. It made his throat spicy and had the aftertaste of dried sweet potato.
In the afternoon, Sun Zongyu took a nap in the village committee duty room, and a few of them played a game in the village committee office, making a lot of noise.
When I woke up, it was around three in the afternoon. There was a violent storm with thunder and lightning outside. I couldn't go back, so I decided to continue flood prevention in the village.
A man wearing a straw raincoat arrived at the village committee office, calling for Township Head Sun. Sun Zongyuan met him. It turned out to be Xiao Zhao, a temporary worker in the work area. Xiao Zhao informed him that the county had notified him that heavy rain was expected tonight, and the township required all cadres to be on duty at flood prevention posts and not to go home. At the same time, they were mobilizing Party members and cadres from all villages to prepare for flood prevention and disaster relief.
After saying that, he put on his raincoat again and walked into the heavy rain to the next village.
Sun Zongyu discussed with several cadres and decided to divide the town and village cadres into five groups before it got dark, with three groups in the three ponds and two groups in Kunhe. Each group would be led by four township cadres and village secretary Zhang. Each group in the village would be equipped with ten people, three lanterns, and fifty plastic bags for fertilizer as spare parts.
After the groups were divided, the village cadres worked hard to arrange personnel and materials. Sun Zongyu and three cadres put on straw hats and raincoats and inspected the three ponds and the Kunhe River embankment again. Although it was raining heavily, the water in the Kunhe River was still flowing slowly, and the flow rate did not increase much.
When we returned to the village committee office, everyone's waists were wet from the rain, and their sandals were full of mud. Two people even came back holding their sandals.
At around six o'clock, all the villagers gathered in the meeting room. The village cadres carried two bags of steamed bread, a ladle of garlic and a bundle of green onions. Everyone simply ate the green onions, garlic and bread to satisfy their hunger. Everyone drank a large bowl of ginger soup and went to their respective posts at seven o'clock.
Sun Zongyuan and Secretary Zhang brought ten people to the other side of Kun River in the rain. He looked around and found no place to shelter from the wind and rain, so he asked Secretary Zhang to take eight people back to the village to find a way to build a shed. More than half an hour later, these people came over, each carrying three or four corn stalks. They found a place with a wide view and higher terrain, tied the corn stalks together with ropes, and built a human-shaped hut. Fortunately, the corn stalks were thick, and the wind and rain outside could not blow in. Several people sat on the corn stalks and watched the river water outside the shed gradually become turbid and larger.
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