Home sweet home???

Oh, to live a day in the life of a person who resides in a flood-prone area!  I am telling you....  it is certainly living the dream!  Let me share with you what a rainy day consists for me in my place that I call home....

With knowledge of rain coming this way.... we spend a fair amount of time watching the Doppler Radar on either the Weather Channel or on Weather.com and pay close attention to the pretty colors that range in shades of green, yellow, orange and red.  With a keen eye and a fair amount of guesstimating where our town sits on the map... we (meaning DH and myself) contemplate the need to venture outside in the rain and manually close the sewer line to our house.  Neither of us really want to be out there since the shut off valve is hidden in the front bushes, but...  one of us will be determined enough to just do it.  Of course, we announce the final bathroom run for the day, night or whenever we are to embark on shutting our house off from using any running water.....

Then, we spend our day, evening or whatever keeping a keen eye on the lone drain in our laundry room to see if the water in that drain pipe rises and pray that it stays below ground level.  Of course, while the rain continues outside, there is really no guarantee that the water will not rise....

This is that drain.  We removed the pretty cover so we can shine a flashlight down it to see if the water is rising.  Obviously, this picture does not offer any justice since the water level is roughly a fraction of an inch from overflowing (and we closed the sewer valve over 12 hours earlier so we can try to sleep a little at night while it continues to rain outside).  When it does happen to overflow.... we have at least a chance to grab the nearby shop vac and start pumping the crap before it can flow on over to our finished basement.  Sadly, we have become professionals at sewer cleanup when we failed to follow the first two usual steps of watching the radar and closing the valve before the water rises.  With that in mind.... we watch the sump pump pushing water out of our crawl space.  With 2 pumps at the ready.... we pay attention to how many are running.  We have one that is hard-wired with electricity and a secondary that has a battery backup set to run if the main one cannot keep up...

That is where the "fun" begins....  There is nothing else we can do except watch the rain water accumulate on the streets and the nearby creek that is roughly a block away.  With the new larger storm drains in place from a few years back (several to be exact), we all keep an eye out for our neighbors and try to help them keep the water at bay for their homes.  The street gets blocked off with barriers once the waters rise, one neighbor resorts to pumping the accumulating water to the overflowing creeks to try to avoid water entering his home while another sadly forgot to pay attention to the weather and is pumping out the flooding in their basement.  The local reservoir is filling fast and all anyone can do is wait it out once all their current preventative measures are done....

 Signs in place...

 Pumps running...

 The overflowing creek....

And here we are....  looking at the local reservoir threatening to back flow on to one of the main streets in town.  I took this picture an hour ago when I went to get myself a king-sized candy bar....  Yep, when I get stressed I run for chocolate.  The level of stress is based upon the size of the chocolate I get.  Fun size is just a taste on my easy days and a king-size is when I try to laugh instead of cry from the frustration and just to think.... Spring showers are only a small part of the flood watching season.  I get to do this again in the fall, too.... oh, and when we get a real huge rainfall in the summer and when we have a huge snowfall melting too fast.....

Since there is mention of this rain not ending for a couple more days, I have to figure how to shower, wash dishes, clean my house, and avoid the stench from unflushed toilets for a couple more days (or until things start to dry out a little outside).  I think ordering pizza, paper plates, plastic cutlery, and visits to the local Y are in order for me.  On the bright side of all of this is I have lakefront property only part of the year and I get to feel like I am camping without the inconvenience of leaving my house.  Oh, and if I am really lucky....  we might still have power for this.  The sound of the generator running really gives me a headache and I really hate carrying gas cans in the back of my truck.

Have a great day everyone!