Water, water, everywhere

I can now say that I know what it's like to experience tropical rain. After having the remnants of Hurricane Lowell (from the Pacific) train over us for several days and the leftovers of Hurricane Ike (from the Gulf) roar through us on the heels of that, I didn't think the rain would ever stop. They weather forecasters told us that after Ike got out of here (about 5 pm on Sunday) that the rain would stop. Well, it didn't. (Wouldn't you love to have a job where you can be wrong most of the time and still have a job? LOL!) We continued to get rain showers through Monday afternoon.

Our rain gauge holds 5 inches. We emptied it twice! I can only remember once when we had 5" of rain spanning two days. The total just for Saturday alone was over 6 inches in 24 hours. That broke the all time, 24 hour record for rainfall. We got even more on Sunday. The total at our house as of last night was almost 12 inches!

Our home is on land that slopes down from the road. When we had our driveway put in they angled it so the water would drain away from our house. Well, that works as long as you don't get torrential rains. By Saturday morning, water starting seeping into our basement. Given the rate the rain was falling, hubby and I knew we had to do something to divert the water from the house or we would have a flooded basement. I helped where I could though hubby did most of the muscle work. A tarp was placed over one section by the house to keep water from pouring into that vulnerable spot. Hubby angled it so it would drain off where it wouldn't do any harm. He dug out our driveway drainage spot so it would funnel off water into the center of the yard. Both places in our home's foundation where the water came in needs to be fixed so they won't leak again. Though I hope we don't have these kind of rains on a regular basis.

By Sunday, the ground was saturated and water began coming in a little more seriously. Hubby, clad in a hooded rainsuit, dug a deeper hole by the driveway to collect the water streaming down our drive. Another tarp was added to the other one to protect a larger area from overflowing gutters. They simply aren't meant to handle that much water at once. He bailed water out of one of the flower beds in front (where it had collected to a depth of 3 inches) saving us from more basement flooding. I helped him get things when he needed them and worked on sopping up water with towels and rags downstairs. Afterwards, we set up fans to dry the rest of it up. Thankfully, we managed to keep most of the water out. Hubby may have had some little boys dream day of playing outside in the water and the mud, but it wasn't his idea of a good time. He was defending his home from an unwanted intruder!

Several times on Sunday our electricity blinked off and on. At one point, I heard an explosion nearby that hubby said was probably an electric transformer blowing up. It wasn't ours. I had my fingers crossed we would not have to deal with a power outage too.

Others in our area weren't as successful in keeping the water out of their homes. Our next door neighbor bailed 150 gallons of water out of his basement! The local news carried stories about more flooded basements, apartments, streets, etc.

Needless to say, not much got done over the weekend other than dealing with water and watching the radar on the Weather Channel.