Rain, Rain, Go AWAY!

[jedimaster91]

<Jedi's town> just got slammed with crazy amounts of rain. Official tally for Round 1 of storms was 5-7 inches of rain. Half the city is flooded. I was wading through knee-deep water on my way to work this morning. The library has about 4 ft of water in the basement. That happens to be where books are stored while they are waiting to either be shipped to other branches, or enter circulation. The director estimates tens of thousands of books have been ruined as well as the computer network system that controls every branch of the library. So, no computer access whatsoever for the next 2-3 days, possibly more. So I've got a few unexpected days off--really the only silver lining in this storm cloud since my copy of Omen was most likely among the ruined books. Me not happy.

And thanks to the water getting dangerously involved with the electrical systems, I spent most of my grand hour and a half at work on the first floor not touching anyting and waiting for the rain to let up enough so we could kick the patrons out and let the electric company cut the power. It has not been a fun day as several of my coworkers have lost vehicles to the flooding, and we're expecting another round of severe storms this afternoon.

[Darkwolf]

I do believe we are in the same general area. If so, are you aware that we are supposed to be getting even more rain this afternoon? By the way, I am across the river from the town where Tom Wills just retired as a local meteorologist

[ditchdj]

You know, comparing to how the weather was when I was growing up, the climate IS changing, and it's NOT changing for the better. The storm systems we get are ALWAYS destructive, whether it be flooding or wind damage. I remember that severe weather in the winter was almost unheard of. Now we get severe weather year-round with dangerous lightning and tornados. I dont know what it is but it seems like Mother Nature's on steroids.

[jedimaster91]

Well, luckily the second round didn't seem to be as bad.

I do believe we are in the same general area. If so, are you aware that we are supposed to be getting even more rain this afternoon? By the way, I am across the river from the town where Tom Wills just retired as a local meteorologist

We are in the same area. I live in the town where Tom Wills is a meteorologist. I've been watching the news since I got sent home from work, and the damage is incredible. I've never seen anything like this.

[Luna Baby]

My aunt is in Jeffersonville, In., and another in Louisville. The Jeff aunt has posted some amazing pictures of the flooding there. I can remember back in 1996 or 1997 Louisville had a big flood but we were out in Okolona and didn't have much to worry about. Her pics of this flood are just mind blowing. Churches, businesses, homes, all flooded. Cars floating, people in john boats.

[jedimaster91]

Updateyness:

Library coorperate knew the damage to the main branch was bad. Initial guess was 1 million dollars in damage between all the books lost (tens of thousands), new computers, not-so-new computers, carpeting, office furnature, and so forth. Today I've been hearing new estimates between 2 and 5 million. The news people are saying the building will be closed until Labor Day. In the meantime, Mr Jedi has suggested temporary unemployment, which I shall be looking into probably Monday.

[LillFilly]

Oooh, I feel bad for the books! That's why we always stored stuff in the basement in big rubbermade/tupperware sitting on platforms, because we always got a little flooding.

[Chromatix]

Flooding is always a major pain when it happens. The real trick is to figure out where it definitely won't happen, and build stuff there.

Helsinki is pretty well sorted out that way. It's built on a rocky peninsula, so despite being coastal, most of it is elevated and properly drained. The only serious risk of flooding over most of it is when a storm decides to push the Baltic Sea around, and that only really affects the Market Square. Also helping is the large amounts of green space built into the city plan - nothing soaks up rainwater like genuine plantlife.

[Megg]

Flooding is bad, y'all feel free to send that water to SoCal - I promise it won't flood us! Probably all evaporate before it hit the ground.

In Idaho Falls about two years ago, there was this horrific freak rain/snow/slush storm that took out the power to the whole town. That is how we discovered the crack in our foundation that caused flooding - apparently. I feel for anyone who has to clean that kind of thing up. It took us hours, thank the FSM for shop vacs! We weren't smart enough for Rubbermaid, unfortunately.

[Silas G. T. Brontë]

That rain should go down here in Texas where this summer we've had the hottest and driest summer in decades!

[jedimaster91]

You can have it.

Internet came back last night at work. So my brief reprieve from SCs is drawing to a close. I also got an e-mail from my bosses saying they will be trying to get us hours at locations that are open and functioning. Those hours will also be as close as possible to our normal schedules. Which is a HUGE relief to me. I might be able to cancel my unemployment claim, which would be super awesome.

[seigus]

My wife (alas, still in Idaho!) told me on the 6th (the SIXTH!!!) that Boise had already had TEN times its usual rainfall for August...