The Great Flood (Almost)

A double rainbow was all the warning we had of the rain to come as we drove home. A few random flashes of lighning alerted us to the fact that there was probably a strom, but we weren't ready for what came next. One moment we were in the sun, the next it was pouring with rain.

There was water pouring down these stairs like a river.

We drew up on the driveway and the first thing we saw through the driving rain was the open garage door at the bottom of our sloping driveway. The water was pouring in. But when we got inside to find out why the door was open we found that half the garage was already flooded and Mum was up to her ankles in water trying to save our stuff.

There wasn't much we could do just then. so we waited for the rain to stop. In the meantime the bottom of the garden turned into a marsh and the front became a swimming pool. Really, you almost needed the flippers we unearthed among the soaked things on the floor. The gutters couldn't handle the rain and it was pouring over the sides like a waterfall. The roads had turned into dirty brown lakes and on the highway a car was parked on it's side after a crash. Truely the rain was powerful.

The whole garden was a bog

All of a sudden the rain had stopped. Dad, Duncan and I opened both the garage doors and set to work to clean up the mess. Two soaked armchairs were the first to come out, followed by a damp ping pong table, a couple of plastic wrapped mattesses, and box after box of Mum's precious books.

There was actually a drain under all that water, it just couldn't handle the rain!

There was so much water on the floor that we were sweeping it out with a broom. Soggy cardboard had to be dumped outside in a pile and everything reorganised so that it didn't get any wetter. Thankfully, nothing much was really damaged. We were lucky in that respected. Plus the garage got a much needed cleanout. The flood did us some good!