Slide Takes Rural Escape Too Far Remote Settings Offer Beauty, Challenges You Don’T Find In City

When AnnEtta McNeely and her husband built their two-story dream home overlooking Lake Pend Oreille, they knew they had found a little slice of heaven.

In summer, birds greeted them in the mornings. In winter, fir trees were flocked with heavy snow and animal tracks filled their back yard.

But this week, the Bayview couple learned that despite Kootenai County’s rapid growth, this is a place where many residents can easily get cut off from civilization.

A rock slide on Cape Horn Road northeast of this tiny lakeside town isolated the McNeelys from the city for about three days.

For the next three weeks, they - along with about 75 other families - will have limited travel times while crews fix the road.

“When it first got started, we just laughed, rolled over in bed and said, `Ah, a day off of work,”’ McNeely said. “Now, it’s like being put on curfew.”

Like others seeking refuge from the heavily populated suburbs, the McNeelys looked for remote areas with breathtaking views.

But that also meant planning for events and taking precautions that city dwellers may never have to worry about.

Steep, snow-covered driveways in the winter. High winds that can knock out power and heat. Four-wheel drives. Chains. A change of clothes in case of emergencies.

“I think it is a mindset,” she said. “Part of your mindset is that you’re willing to live here with the inconveniences.”

For more than a week, they were without water because a pump burned out in the community water well. They showered in Athol before work and filled the bathtub with water for cooking and drinking.

“I’m sure my daughter and son-in-law who live in central California shake their heads in disbelief,” McNeely said.

Kootenai County’s population increased 2.6 percent from 1997 to 1998, according to the latest estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Just as many people move to remote areas as move to subdivision developments, said Kootenai County senior planner Rand Wichman.

“There are a fair number of places in Kootenai County where there’s only one way in and one way out,” he said.

People want country living, but “one of the things that comes with that is access problems,” Wichman said.

Take residents such as Bob Cochrane, who lived through two floods in the LaTour Creek area of Cataldo.

He built a home that sat 100 yards from the Coeur d’Alene River on 12-inch footings with a 4-foot wall.

In 1997, rising water caused $30,000 worth of damage. LaTour Creek Road was flooded. He had to pile furniture into boats and take it to relatives’ homes.

After that, he had had enough.

He packed up everything - even his manufactured home - and moved to a hillside in Cataldo, where he worries only about snowplowing in the winter.

“It looks good compared to that water,” he said.

Many people are moving to the area, but the road still floods in high water, said Cochrane, who works for the Eastside Highway District.

Disaster services and county officials say people moving to those areas are well aware of their obstacles.

“For the most part, people living in North Idaho are pretty good about taking care of themselves,” said Sandy Von Behren of the county’s disaster services. “You have the ice storms, the snowstorms, the flooding and now the rock slides, and people are dealing with it.”

City dwellers might question why someone would want to pack in supplies in case of power outages or use pickaxes on steep icy driveways, but rural residents such as AnnEtta McNeely say it’s only a minor hassle.

“You still can’t help but think, `I’d rather live in this beautiful place with all these little inconveniences rather than live in town with people on top of you,”’ she said.