Wednesday, June 17, 2009

And the rain crashed down on the roof*...

...and in the yard...

...and on the gardens...

...and on the highways...

...and in the creeks...

...and it really, really, really made a big mess of things tonight.

Note to rain: You can stop now. Anytime. Really.

This was our front yard earlier this evening**...

You didn't know we had our own private lake with waterfalls feeding into it? No? Neither did we.

And here was our side yard going down the hill to the back yard**...

What? You were also unaware that we have our own river with Class 5 rapids? Again, we were just as surprised about this as you are.

Um...we got some rain today. Yeah. Understatement.

At last report, our area got about 4" of rain throughout the evening. What a total, f***ing mess. Kevin just finished doing a whole lot of re-grading of our driveway and front hill, and as you can see in the first picture, it is pretty well trashed. And that river running down the back hill? It goes directly into the small garden. There was a nearly identical river running on the other side of the back yard, which went directly through the center of our big garden, pretty much wiping out everything that was growing in that swath. (Except the garlic, which was well-rooted and stood its ground.)

To say we are bummed is an understatement. Kevin is especially disheartened by all of the undoing of his hard work in the driveway and yard. The fact that our garden was doing better than it has in the last several years and is now probably more than 2/3 gone...well, that's adding insult to injury. I haven't even allowed myself to think about my salad garden. While the flooding wasn't right next to that area, the beds have to be so saturated that I can just picture my little plants swimming for their lives. :::sigh:::

I guess I'll get a better idea of the total damage tomorrow. Thankfully, though, our damage does seem to be limited to outside stuff, and other than the loss of the veggies, it is mostly cosmetic. A pain in the arse to deal with, to be sure, but it will not affect our quality of life.

There are plenty of other people in our local area who have not been so lucky. One of the main roads in our area is Rt. 130, a good stretch of which lies along a valley, and that area has sustained incredible flooding tonight. In fact, my beloved gym is apparently one of the casualties. I didn't go tonight, but I heard water was coming up through the drains (it is in the basement of a building very near to the creek) and the parking lot was a lake. It makes me heartsick to think about it. It makes me even more heartsick to think how many people's homes and businesses along that same corridor and in other lower-lying parts of the area have had the same thing happen. These are not well-to-do areas for the most part to begin with. It makes me so sad to realize people are losing important things, things that will affect their quality of life. Totally puts our muddy yard and mangled gardens into perspective.

Anyway, I'm praying tonight that the rain will stop soon (and that the rains forecasted for later this week might take a different route!), and that when the damage is assessed, it won't be as bad as it seems for everyone right now. 

Please think dry thoughts for us here in the eastern Pittsburgh area, would ya?

*I really wanted to link to the Eddie from Ohio song, "And the Rain Crashed Down" but for the life of me, I cannot figure out how to embed a song here on my blog. So I'll just encourage you to go look for it and listen to it. Very cool song.

**Sorry for the crappy photo quality. I took the pictures with my cell phone, and frankly, it was raining so hard it was difficult to get a clear picture with any camera. Trust me, I tried.

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