This summer, campus facility workers Randy Arnold and Jamie Carter were driving down Elsah Hills to do some maintenance on Principia property. As they got to the bottom of the hill they noticed that the road was completely flooded and decided to stop and see if the farm at the bottom of the hill needed help. They found several animals caught in the flood and pinned against their pens by the strong currents. They also saw an Elsah township worker opening the gate to the farm. They both got out of their car to help.
Back at the gatehouse, Adam Smiley of Campus Security received a call from a FedEx delivery driver who informed Smiley that both roads from campus were completely flooded. Smiley informed the Director of Campus Security Andrew Lesky. The director and Assistant Director of Campus Security Eric Phillips, drove through Elsah Hills, where they, too, the flooding and the scene at the farm. As they watched the scene unfold, Lesky said to his colleague, “Oh, those poor people” It didn’t take long before they recognized some faces.
“Those are Prin facilities guys” he said. Lesky called Senior Security Officer Adam Kuhn for backup before heading out with Phillips to help. Nick Manns, the Jersey County Sheriff, who was responding to another incident on the other side of the flooded road, joined in the rescue while he waited for backup.
Kuhn arrived on site shortly after and waded into the chest-deep water with Carter, Arnold, and the township worker. They started with the animals in the most dire straits: four goats, a miniature pony, and a cow. Together they herded the animals towards the other Campus Security officers who took them to a barn, which had been rebuilt over the past year on higher ground by the Structural Trades team.
Carter heard a noise coming from another barn. Inside the barn, he found four more goats and called for help moving the animals. Kuhn carried one of the goats as it was pregnant and had trouble moving in the water. In another barn they found two rabbits and a cat. Arnold had gone to look for some chickens he had seen earlier, and Carter found a water trough that was about four feet long. He flipped it over and took it to Randy Arnold who had found the chickens. Carter recalled that they “started plucking chickens out of the coop and throwing them in this trough like it was a miniature ark.”
They said it was challenging to get some of the bigger animals into the barn. Randy said the cow was quite stubborn.
“The horse and the cow stayed together all the time,” Lesky said, “so I knew that if we got the horse into the barn, then we had a chance to get the big cow in. Some people got animals that were cooperative and I, of course, got the billy goat that wanted to butt heads with me.”
However, not all animals were struggling with the flood. Arnold recalls the ducks they found swimming on the water. “You ducks couldn’t give somebody a piggy-back ride?” A peacock had found relative safety by standing on top of a rooster. They placed the peacock on the gate and rescued the rooster.
Everyone was quite happy at the opportunity to help, they said. “We were just at the right place at the right time,” said Carter.
“It was nice to be able to do something like that,” Lesky said. “The things that we do are typically more on the emergency side of things.”
The owner of the farm was not home during the incident, but two of his neighbors took the animals home to care for them, according to the Principia employees. Lesky said the heavy rain that led to the July 9 flooding in Elsah Hills is rare.
