Flood. Part 2.

Hoo boy. Mother Nature sure doesn’t like the midwest very much right now. We survived Sunday’s storms just fine. Last night it was pouring on my way home after having rained pretty much all day long. The lightning was everywhere. Now, I like thunder as much as the next guy, but lightning freaks me out. It hit in the fields next to the road as I was driving to the highway. Ugh. Of course I made it home just fine, but not without a few “aahs!” when there’d be a flash overhead. I turned on the TV the minute I got inside to discover that FDL had a tornado warning and our area was under a “Severe Thunderstorm Warning.” You think? The cats don’t care for storms much so they were not enjoying the thunder booming at all. I got them fed, going mentally through how I’d corral everyone into the basement if the tornado sirens went off. I got out the flashlights in case we lost power. I called Adam and told him he should come home.

The cable went out around 5:20, leaving me with no way of keeping track of the weather except to look outside. It was still raining pretty hard but all the tornadic activity had appeared to be sticking further south so I could start to relax a little. Adam got home and double checked the basement for water. It continued to alternate between torrential downpours and areas of calm. The sump pump kicked in sometime in the late afternoon. It ran almost continually all night and Adam had to go out in the pouring rain to attach the hose out to the street. The neighbors behind us had been working on doing some landscaping/yard work over the last couple days and their whole yard became a lake. It spilled through the fence into our back yard. It was mostly gone this morning (oh, and the cable was back on too.)

We dug out the antenna from my old apartment and were able to get FOX and NBC pretty well. Good thing this wasn’t a year from now – the bunny ears would be no good with the switch to digital signals. We decided to watch Norbit (another Oscar film. Ok, although I don’t really like Eddie Murphy in any of his many permutations) although we got sidetracked for awhile when Adam messed with the sump pump and outside. So far, so good for basement water. We’ve got the tiny trickle by the furnace and Adam says there’s a little in the shop area. Don’t know whether to be concerned by that yet or not.

All things considered, we made out pretty well in this whole thing. Areas of Oshkosh were flooded, submerging entire cars in some spots. I drove down 21 at lunch this afternoon and it looks like the area down by my former apartment got hit pretty bad again. I remember the flooding a few years back that shut down the whole street and flooded out the bottom level of many of the buildings in my apartment complex.


(pictures from back in June 2004)

One of my friends and co-workers at Kmart lived in a lower that had water up to waist height. He lost pretty much everything. That would suck. Luckily I was an upper and I managed to park my car uphill at Ponderosa. (Although that was when I still had the Saturn, so maybe I should have left it in the lot to get submerged. Hmm… But I digress…) Still a freaky time. Fond du Lac has rivers for streets and even a few confirmed tornadoes. The rivers and lakes in the area are still rising with most supposed to crest sometime today. Just crazy. And guess what? There’s rain in the forecast for tomorrow. Wonderful.

Looking on the bright side, the grass that Adam planted last Saturday? Growing like a rock star. Yay for water and nitrogen!