Wettest day in history...

I woke up at 2:30am from an alarm going off on my phone. “Flash flood warning”. And in my groggy state, I silenced the alarm and then heard the rain pelting the window. It was coming down hard and I quickly got out of bed to check our continually leaky skylights. They were leaking, but nothing we hadn’t dealt with before. I went back to bed. I received two more alerts on my phone about flash floods before 6:30 this morning. By the time I pulled myself out of bed to survey the damage of the storm it was after seven and it appeared our backyard had been irrigated. There was a lot of water and it was still coming down strong.



I turned on the news to see the whole valley suffering from this intense storm. Portions of highways were closed, some schools closed, commercial buildings had roofs collapsing, cars were stranded in many parking lots with water to the windows – it was devastating.

Our area was hit hard but schools remained opened. I sent the kids to school and I just wanted to snuggle up on the couch and enjoy the Today show. But alas the local news hijacked the station and tied it up for hours reporting the same thing over and over again with nothing new to report. Disappointing.

When I took Bennett to school I saw the retention basin was filled to capacity - this is several feet deep and is a holding ground when there is excess water. We had a little excess!


Later in the day I drove by the same basin and although it had receded some, there was still plenty of water and there were throngs of kids splashing around. Once Steve got home from work, we joined the fun. Ironically, we all have pools in our backyard, but this "pond" in the neighborhood was so much more fun. There was football, paddle boards, kayaks, wake skating behind an ATV and a paddle boat. It reminded me of the first day of summer in so many ways. A night the kids won't soon forget.









The kids played without a care in the world as their parents sat on the sidelines talking about the storm damages to their houses; leaking windows, collapsing roofs, flooded yards and basements. But for a moment, life was sweet and simple.

It was the wettest day ever recorded in history. Our area received almost 4.5 inches in less than 8 hours. It's been referred to as the 100 year flood. How lucky are we that we got to experience two "100 year floods" in Milwaukee (one of which took out our entire basement) and one in Phoenix. I'm just glad I don't have a basement this go around.