The Deluge Known as Fay

I don't know when I've seen more rain in a 24 hour period. I thought about building an ark but I don't really have any idea how big a cubit is. I suppose I could check the builders manual (a.k.a.Bible) but I don't think there's a handy conversion chart in there.

Got a few pictures while I was out Saturday and Sunday. Yeah, I went out a time or two Saturday. My 12 year old had spent the night with friends Friday night and by mid-afternoon Saturday they were concerned that their road was about to flood out completely so we met up halfway. It was surprising the number of people out shopping. Power was out in a lot of places but their were still stores and restaurants open. Starbucks, in fact. If I could have parked close enough I would have gone in. Yes, I own an umbrella, but an umbrella is pretty useless when the wind is blowing the rain sideways. Besides, it's kind of embarrassing (and really annoying) to have your umbrella blow inside out...

These first pictures are the rainwater discharge pond at the front of the complex where I live.






What you see is flood vs. non-flood versions of the pond. The non-flood version was taken today (Tues. eve), and as you can see the landscaping and white railing are usually not underwater. The water is still about 10 inches higher than normal.

My second trip was due to my 16 year old wanting to go to a friends house to hang out with an accumulation of teens(similar to a gaggle of geese in many ways). Since she is learning to drive this year I thought it would be a good thing for her to experience these poor driving conditions. Here's a re-enactment of our usual driving lessons:

Me: Slow down. Slow Down! SLOW DOWN!!
Her: Ooooh! Turn up the radio! I like this song!!!

Neither one of us could believe I let her drive, but I would rather she learn to navigate bad conditions with me in the car than to learn it on her own. She would probably have preferred learning alone, since I took the opportunity to impart every piece of driving-in-bad-weather advice imaginable. I think this is the first time she actually turned the radio down and paid attention. Nothing teaches you to slow down like a good scare or two - such as not being able to see well, semi-flooded roads, and feeling your car slide because you have no traction. Yeah, valuable learning experience that one. Come to think of it, this is probably the first time that she was more afraid while she was driving than I was.

The flooding only worsened as the evening progressed. The city asked for a moratorium on the use of washing machines and dishwashers, since all the run-off and flooding was overwhelming the sewer system. Guess who had a full dishwasher and a bunch of laundry to do? Note to self: next time a big storm is coming do the laundry and run the dishwasher before the storm. I guess I could have taken care of it Friday after work, but hey - it was Friday! Who wants to do laundry on Friday???

These last two picture are at the soccer complex.




My oldest daughter had training Sunday afternoon and pretty much nothing gets in the way of soccer. I've seen them play in raining, 40 degree weather. They don't care, unless they lose. Field 1 was completely underwater as well as a large portion of the front parking. We do get puddles now and then, they just aren't usually this big...


I didn't bother driving all the way around the complex because the road on the other side is lower, along with a couple of the back fields. There is one field out of the ten that has artificial turf (and it's on high ground) so they trained there to avoid mud issues.

A lot of neighborhoods lost power, some neighborhoods were evacuated due to flooding. A lot of trees have fallen and continue to fall because the ground is so saturated and therefore unstable. In fact, late this afternoon we heard a loud crash at work and saw that a tree had fallen on the back storage building. Nothing close enough to the main building for me to worry about ;) Now we wait to see if "Gustav" makes an appearance this way!