Flooding 2013

It has been raining a lot this summer.  We have had rain, usually a thunderstorm, pretty much every day since we've been back from Disney World.  Last night we lost power around nine thirty.  It was raining a lot, but not windy or with much lightening.  We learned today that we had about an inch and a half during a two hour period.  This morning, when I went in the basement to throw in a load of laundry, there was an inch or two of water in the basement.  The sump pump was clogged or messed up by the power outage, or both so none of the water was being pumped out.  Colin came home from work to fix the pump and clean up the mess, and then he went back to work after lunch.

The kids played outside and went for a walk in our woods.  We chatted with our neighbor up the hill about the amount of rain we had over night and his drainage pipe flowing at over 60 gallons per minute.  The ground is just saturated from all the rain we've been having and can't handle any more.

About three o'clock, we had a heavy downpour.  Our driveway had running water and the street had water flowing down it.  Then it just kept getting worse and worse.  Then the water in the street turned brown.  Then the water started flowing up over the sidewalk and then down our neighbors's driveways across the street.  It started to creep up our grass.  I have never seen anything like it.  (The funny thing was that I have never seen water flow into the drain in front of our house because it is raised up a bit.  It was flooded over as you can see in the third photo.) There were rapids in the street.  Part of the road in front of Judith's washed away, and the street was filled with dirt and small rocks.  We had just over two inches of rain between three and four o'clock.

When the rain stopped, we went out to investigate.  The road, still flowing with water, was a mess.  Up the hill it was worse.  Sections of the road had buckled and broken way, with bits of asphalt all down the street.  The whole neighborhood was walking around, surveying the damage.  It was a mess.  The department of public works was out soon, using payloaders to dump the dirt into dump trucks.  It was crazy to watch. 

Nearly midnight now and I can hear what sounds like a someone running the bath.  It is coming from the basement.  The sump pump is doing its best to keep up, but we have standing water.  Three DPW trucks just headed up the hill.  It is going to be a long night.  Twenty roads in Lebanon are impassible, and a total of 60 are impacted.