Day 1991

We got a horrendous amount of rain last night. You probably saw it on the morning news. Eight inches of rain in just a few hours is definitely newsworthy. There was severe flooding in many parts of town, including some areas not far from where we live. We are nearing all time record rainfall levels now. This is uncharted territory. The rain seems to be the main topic of conversation with everyone I see. Every time we have a storm like we did last night, I'm really glad that we live on top of a hill. It's a modest, very gentle hill, but it does put us at least 50 feet above the nearest water. Last night's storms knocked out our power again, but the outage didn't last long. By the time I calmed the dogs down and called in the outage report on my cell phone, the power had already been restored.

Nobody got much sleep last night. The thunder was loud enough to wake Dot, and the lightning was bright enough to send both dogs into a storm induced panic. I got a blanket and slept on the floor with Dot for a while in an effort too calm her down. When my bad shoulder started to hurt, Janet traded places with me. By the time her back started to hurt, the worst of the storm was over. When we all woke up this morning, the storm had turned into a gentle shower. The dogs got their morning walk right on schedule and then I went out for breakfast like I usually do on Friday mornings.

It's a good thing I was headed South towards the restaurant, because Northbound traffic was gridlocked in front of our house. I suspect that a major intersections a few miles down the road was still underwater. Most of the small creeks that feed the lake behind our house are outside their banks and low lying areas are flooded. Since I wasn't headed downtown to go to work, I didn't have a problem. I left the roads with bridges and underpasses to other people had a nice breakfast in the neighborhood instead. By the time I finished my meal, a lot of the high water seemed to have subsided. With things returning to normal, I went to Central Market to get groceries for the weekend, and then headed home to finish this week's work.

Today was busy. I cleared the water off the roof again, updated a few more websites, and finished writing another article. That was more than enough for one day. I'm getting used to all the new rituals imposed by wet, stormy weather and aging dogs, but it is a bit tiring. Everything is peaceful now, although another wave of thunderstorms is scheduled to arrive sometime after midnight. Lets hope that tonight's rain isn't accompanied by thunder and lightning like it was last night. We all could use some sleep.

Emmitt is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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