And the rain came down, down, down…

“Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink…”

I was startled awake about 1am Monday morning. Startled is quite the word. The thunder rolled and rolled and rolled. My windows rattled. The house shook. The floors vibrated.

By 2:30 am it was a house party. With everyone awake. Except my husband who could sleep through anything. And does.

The thunder was deafening. But what was scary was the lightning. It felt like the storm was right on top of our house. The lightning strikes were so close. And they were so frequent. And bright. That our light sensitive street lamps went out in a confusion over daylight and the light from the lightning.

The thunder. The lightning. And then the rain. Wow. The rain. Normally when you think about thunderstorms. They are often gone as quickly as they pop-up. The down pour might be torrential. But it’s over pretty quickly. But this rain. Unreal. There was no wind to drive it on. It – again – seemed to sit on top of our house. And sit. And sit. And sit.

For five hours it sat. Sat so loudly no one could sleep. And just when you thought the storm was dissipating. The thunder and lightning seeming to get further apart. It didn’t. And it seemed like a new wave had arrived. But the wind that was non-existent didn’t blow it in. It just kept coming. Down, down, down.

The ferocity must have died down around 5:30. That is the last time I recall looking at the clock. Until 6:45 when Michael woke me up to say that our county had delayed schools by 90 minutes.

When he told me that. I really could not comprehend WHY schools were closed or delayed. It was just a horrid thunderstorm. That kept me up all night. I was curious to see what our creek looked like in the light of day. But school closing did not make sense.

Until I turned on the news. And saw some of the same images you have probably seen by now. Of neighborhoods underwater. Of neighborhoods cut off because of washed out roads. Of amusement parks underwater. Of major highways under water. Disconnecting people in this HUGE metro area.

It even made hummingbirds think that they were moths.My little city in the ‘burbs got almost 12 inches of water in a six hour period. 12 inches! That number is still astounding to me.

So what does 12 inches of water do? Well. Let’s have a little perspective. We live on a pretty big piece of property. And at the border is a creek.

This is what it typically looks like.

And this is what it looks like after a lot of rain.
And this is what it looks like after 12 inches of rain.
The girls have a red playhouse. It is on stilts. Cemented into the ground. With a slide coming out. This is what it looked like after 12 inches of rain.
But those waters. Well. They kept rising. And by the next morning. Well. That inundated playhouse. I actually thought it was washed away. But it was just completely under water.

We have a shed (it's the green building on the left of the above photo). Fine Monday morning. But by Monday night. Had about 5 feet of water inside. With a slight recession this morning. (you can see the flood line on the side of the building)I haven't brought myself to even go in there yet.

And our neighborhood. Well. The creek crosses the main road twice.(see those three figures in the water? Three boys. Playing in the nasty flood waters. MRSA cases in waiting...)Both areas unpassable. Except by boat.(the above picture was taken Tuesday and you can see that the waters had receeded alot already. Look at the mud line on the hedge on the right side of the photo...)

I lived on an island until late Tuesday night. And now the clean up begins. We were fortunate in that we are all fine. Our yard is a big sludgy mud puddle. Our basement is damp. But hopefully with some blowers and dehumidifiers the smell will disapate. I am ready for the drama of this year to be over.

So...what about you? Have you had to deal with flooding? Other natural disasters? General drama??