It's flooding here.

[digitalwanderer]

I knew it was raining pretty good today, but had no idea on how bad it was until I saw a neighbor of mine's post over at EB:

It's has been a non stop hard rain for at least 4 hours and the streets are flooded! Thank God my basement is sealed. It rained like this yesterday also!
YIKES!!

Dam!!! My basement is flooded and I had to race like a son of a gun to get all of my Husband's guitars and amps up off the floor!!!!My basement is supposed to be sealed! I guess there are no guarentees!!!!!

Well fuck me up the ass with a hotdog without vaseline, it IS flooded out.

Not only is it a bit flooded, it's also an official State or Federal emergency they called about it. Found out by sitting outside the school waiting for the kids, 10 minutes after they should have been there I went in and found out do to the emergency laws all the children had to be individually picked up and signed out.

Bus services were cancelled, a house collapsed on the other side of town, and I slept thru most of it.

One thing that bugs me, the school STILL hasn't called/contacted me yet to tell me about the pick-up system for today. :?

We got a little water in our basement, but nothing unusual. We got a leaky basement anyways so everything is off the floor.

http://www.nwitimes.com/articles/2006/09/13/updates/breaking_news/d481b7570b4d6a81862571e8004e93a3.txt

The downpours that blasted Northwest Indiana this morning left much of northern Lake County under water, stranded motorists and even caused numerous basement walls to collapse.

Highland appeared to be the hardest hit, with firefighters and utility crews called out to numerous addresses where basement walls were giving way and gas leaks were reported. Many of the addresses reported appeared to be within a block or two of Grace Street, both north and south of Ridge Road.

Highland town manager Richard Underkofler said the biggest problems were on the town's north side, between Kennedy and Cline avenues, south of the Little Calumet River and north of LaPorte Street.

Though the rain has slowed, he said officials didn't expect drainage to peak until around 3 p.m. today.

Underkofler said the town today had received about 150 emergency calls as of 1:15 p.m., and the confirmed numerous reports included the collapse of basement walls.

"The saturated high ground water table comes up and puts stress on the basement walls because we have a shallow water table in Highland," Underkofler said.

People who were evacuated were being sent to the town's Lincoln Center, the headquarters for Highland's Parks and Recreation Department.

Underkofler emphasized that residents in need of evacuation should call 911. And he advised residents with water in their basements not to go into the basement because they would subject themselves to the possibility of electrical shock.

This morning's storms arrived after area grounds were already wet, especially after significant rainfall Tuesday afternoon and evening.

The National Weather Service reported that by 10:35 a.m. today, parts of Lake County -- specifically the Gary, Highland and Griffith areas -- had received up to 4 inches of water. A flash flood warning was issued until 3 p.m.

We live just south of LaPorte Street, MauiMom lives just to the north of it....she got harder hit.

Hey, I hope so! I already marked the site to check. My older son goes to HS and a part of the roof caved in and two hallways were flooded. 30 houses collapsed in the Southridge area and Frog Hollow is veryyyy bad.

30 houses collapsed?!?! Jeeze, Frog Hollow must be underwater!

EDITED BITS: Where are the houses and where you getting the info MM?

Me and mine are all home and safe, well 'cept for my Pathfinder which is down the street getting repaired, but that don't really count.

My basement ain't bad, we live on the high ground in town....but the 3 houses collapsing to 30 in less than 2 hours worries me.

 

[Skrying]

Floods suck, a huge amount, I'd personally say more than a tornado even. With a flood everything gets ruined and its just so extremely nasty, triple so if you live by a river.

Hope it stops raining soon DW, and I hope your house stays fine and nothing worse happens. I still recall the flood of '93 when my entire town was under water, I know how bad floods can be.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Oh, our house is just fine. We're just south of LaPorte street and about 15-20' above it due to a hill.

I haven't heard of any fatalities so far, and all the families who lost their homes have been provided shelters by the town so it's all going pretty good.

My kids are hoping school is closed tomorrow, that's the big question in their mind.

 

[_xxx_]

Wish you luck digi, as well as the whole neighbourhood. Hope it all goes well for you over there.

 

[digitalwanderer]

http://nwitimes.com/extras/flood/

 

[Cartoon Corpse]

it rained steady all day here (NC) yesterday. 2 inches worth. they forecasted off and on showers. we RARELY have an all day rain these past several years.

 

[Crisidelm]

Well, it's happening in a few areas in Italy too right now, but tonight the rain should fall much harder...
http://www.sanremonews.it/it/internal.php?news_code=29283 (Ligurian zone. In Italian, but you can click on the self-explanatory images on the right)

 

[pascal]

We had some rain in the south of the country too. Some cold air and 40 miles winds from the south/artic, but nothing too serious.

Hope you people be well.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Viddy!

 

[Skrying]

That's gotta suck!

The kids get out of school? They most certainly should with the water that high.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Nah, that was yesterday and I wasn't even aware of any flooding until I went to pick them up and they didn't come out.

After about 5 minutes I went in and found out since it was "an emergency situation" their "safety protocols went into effect"...meaning all parents had to come and pick their children up and sign them out.

No buses were running, but I didn't get any calls about it either. No biggy, just wish they would have told me somehow. (I have a funny feeling they were busy and had more things to do that were more important)

We did get a little water in our basement, but about 8 years ago we had cracked drain tiles so we had a shallow-something type of thingy put in. We have a sump pump and our basement doesn't tie into the sewage lines like most houses for our basement drains, so we didn't have any sewage backed up.

But I do plan to take advantage of the situation none-the-less, it's now garbage amnesty week in Highland and they're having trucks running every day picking up anything people feel like pitching. I can't miss an opportunity like that to clean out all the junk from my basement!!!

 

[digitalwanderer]

OMMFG this just so sucks!!!!

Finally had an insurance appraiser come to take a look at our basement and we're entirely NOT covered. On the brightside, since that was finally done I was able to repair the window that fell out and let all the water in that destroyed everything that was in my basement.

My basement was kind of full too, now it's full of molding nasty that all has to get dragged out to the street. Total loss.

Funny thing? I'm actually feeling lucky, MauiMom got it worse than us as her house the sewers backed up in. Total loss for them as well, but even ickier. They lost a lot of stuff in their basement too, I've gotten to know their basement pretty good from some wiring runs.

She's been working on it for days now, and it's exhaustive and nasty stuff. I'd love to offer to help her, but I'm honestly having trouble keeping my own head above water on the week my wife works midnights. It's a LOT more work for me, and I've been hustling just to keep from falling behind too fast. :?

Tonight is Chrissy's last midnight then she has her 7 days off, the first day I get new gloves and some surgical masks and I start hauling. I'm just going to throw everything away. The town is being super cool and is hauling away whatever anyone tosses on their front yard, so I'm gonna take advantage of that fact and there really ain't no way to fix/clean anything that was damaged so I won't even try.

Just thought I'd do an update. That damned rainy night has really turned everyone in our town's lives into mini-disasters in one way or another, but it's also cool because everyone seems to be at least coping too.

Sorry I haven't been around or posting much, but I've been busy as hell. It should get better as I adjust to the new routine, this midnight run was a better one than the first and I'm sure the next will be better. Chris is in love with her job, just in love. She's been so much more relaxed and we had the most wonderful conversation this morning about how much more she enjoys her new shift/location and how it's making her feel like a new person. She's not depressed and stressed all the time, and I couldn't be happier for her.

Oh, and she found out she's making an extry $5/hr for her shift instead of the $1-2/hr bump she thought she was getting. That was our happy thought for the morning.

Gotta run, too much to do but I gotta rest this old fleshsack a bit first. Been running too hard on empty and I can't push myself too hard. (I've been being careful, but I've also been working to build up my strength/endurance and have been starting to push it a little harder. Feels good, damned good. )

So it's still a bad scene, but the family is doing most excellent. Did I mention the kids are doing great in school and my son has only missed 1 day so far? Yup, great attendance/behavoir/grades for both of them and it's a great feeling compared to this time last year.

Ok, ok...I'm off to nap.

 

[pascal]

I thought you was in the safer side of the city.
Good to know your family is doing excellent

 

[digitalwanderer]

Our house was spared from the sewage backup, but the flood still nailed us.

Tomorrow I go get some new gloves and surgical masks, it'll be fun.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Ugh, I'm an hour into hauling/dumping and it SUCKS!

Not only is it nasty work, but it appears I'm horribly out of shape too and had to take a short break after only a lousy hour of hauling.

About 5 square feet cleared, this may just kill me.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Gods

Diggy!


I took a brief break to cook my kids lunch at their requests, pesky buggers!

As my wife asked me to warm up the deep fryer and whip her up some shrimp real quick just after I finished feeding the kids I could hear the rolling thunder of the approaching storm as the skies are blackening.

I love the fates/Gods/karma, and they love me right back. It's so kewl!

EDITED BITS: It just started pouring rain as I posted this.