Want to know how three regular guys decided to help a farmer in rural Lewis County? It happened like this:

Chuck Webster’s business, Sound Mobile Alignment in Tenino, specializes in alignments for tractor-trailers and took a financial hit when the floods forced the State Department of Transportation to close a stretch of Interstate 5. Some of his neighbors’ homes were flooded, but his remained dry.

Webster called a neighbor, Paul McNutt, and the two decided to rent heavy equipment and volunteer their help two days after the freeway reopened. They first tried the FEMA office in Rochester but discovered there wasn’t much tractor work needed. They headed to Adna, Lewis County, parked their cars in the fire department parking lot and drove down the street in the tractor and Bobcat and asked if anyone needed help.

They spent most of the day cleaning up – and there was plenty of work. Some houses were still submerged under 15 feet of water. In other places, where the waters receded, layers of mud and muck 8 feet thick remained. Roads and driveways buckled and crumbled in the floods. Trees and power lines bent under the wind and crashed through buildings and blocked roadways.

Some people were so emotionally shattered by the experience that they didn’t even seem affected by the destruction, Webster said. County officials, though, seemed more than gracious for the help: They would wave them through checkpoints blocking closed roads.

They soon heard of a sheep farmer who lost most of his livestock in the floods. They returned the next weekend, teamed with Paul Wendler, a concrete designer from Olympia, and the three helped clean the sheep farmer’s property.

“We basically did nothing but move mud for days,” McNutt said. “Twice we started before the sun was up and finished after the sun set.”

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Lui and I are back from the tractor dropoff. It's tough to describe, but so many parts of rural Lewis County are still in bad, bad shape. Houses falling over, fields covered in muck, crumbled roads, etc.

Here are two snapshots from Dilwyn Griffith's farm:

South Tacoma can be a goldmine:

I’m riding down Interstate 5 with Chuck Webster. He’s delivering a repaired tractor to a man whose property was devastated during the December 2006 flooding.

I’ll bring you more as the day goes on, but here are some quotes about his desire to help:

I didn’t do it for the notoriety. I did it because I just wanted to help. I was frustrated with the lack of large-scale help. And then I remembered watching Katrina and not being able to do anything about it.

It started with one weekend. We figured we’d just see who we could help. And then you meet another family that needs help, so we went down for another weekend. And then you hear a horror story that tops that, and soon you’re heading down pretty frequently. There’s so much to be done.

We didn’t know anyone down there. We just pulled up and asked if they needed help. They all said, ‘Yeah, but we’re flat broke.’ I told them it wasn’t a big deal. They wondered how. I was just doing it out of genuine concern for my neighbors.

As seen in South Tacoma:

If you read Jason Hagey’s article about the master plan for Point Defiance Park and have some questions for the experts at Metro Parks, there’s a meeting later this month for you to raise your concerns.

It’s from 6-8 p.m. on Jan. 17 at the Metro Parks headquarters at 4702 S. 19th Street in Tacoma.

The final approval of the plan to the Metro Parks board will likely happen next month.

The master plan can be read here.

We're going to give a trip to southwestern Washington another try today. I'll let you know as soon as I find out if it's on or not.

Until then, I'm going to set up a few meetings with people involved with the Global Neighbors Project, a charity which has linked the unlikely partners of Tacoma and Sekameng, Lesotho.