link

Lost log finds its owner

A carved log swept by floods from the yard of a Granite Falls man turns up six months later and 20 miles away - at his workplace.

SNOHOMISH - Byron Petit hadn't bought lottery tickets for years. He didn't think he stood a chance of winning. A week ago, Petit bought 20 lottery tickets. He feels lucky. Petit, 48, has good reason to believe in his good fortune, given what happened to him on May 18.

On that Friday afternoon, he was at Reliable Hardware & Equipment in Snohomish, where he works as general manager. He was strolling around near the Snohomish River. He happened to look at a bundle of brush, branches and garbage - all brought by last year's floods. A log amid the mess caught his eye. It was about 7 feet long and had two carved seats. Someone lost a sitting log, Petit thought.

He kept looking at the log. It looked familiar. He kept looking. And it dawned upon him: It was his sitting log. "It's a miracle," he said.

In 2003, floodwaters originally delivered the log to his property in Granite Falls near the Pilchuck River. He carved two seats on the log with a chainsaw. His family and friends used to sit on it around a campfire. During the Election Day flood in 2006, the river rose fast, swallowed part of his property and washed away the sitting log.

The flood left a jumble of debris as it caused millions of dollars in damage around Snohomish County. To date, Snohomish County residents have reported to the county $8.8 million in flood damage to homes and property, said Mark Murphy, program manager for response and recovery at the county's Emergency Management Department.

Of that damage claim, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has approved about $1.2 million for housing assistance and about $382,000 for other assistance, Murphy said.

Businesses in the county also have filed damage claims, estimated at $4.4 million, Murphy said. The U.S. Small Business Administration has approved more than $11 million in low-interest disaster loans to people and businesses in the state.

Flood damage repair projects are submitted to the federal government by the county, the PUD and diking districts, said John Pennington, director of the Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management.

"I think it's very probable that more money is coming," he said. "It just filters out over a period of time."

Petit said he has yet to clean up a mess left by the flood at his property. As time passed, he forgot about the sitting log. Yet more than six months after the disaster, about 20 miles away from his home, near his office, Petit spotted the log. It sat on the bank of the Snohomish River just like it used to at his property, he said. "I'm not superstitious," he said. "I'm a see-and-believe-things kind of guy. But this got me rethinking about things."

So, Petit spent $20 buying 20 lotto tickets right after the reunion with his sitting log. He plans to haul the log back to his property and chain it to a tree so that another flood won't wash it away. He plans to check to see whether he's won the lottery this weekend.