Flood

I had an exciting morning volunteering at East Orient on Monday. We'd had some crazy, wet weather, the most rain we'd had in a long time, and the roads were a mess with drains clogged and water overflowing everywhere. As I was pulling up to the school, I saw water pouring over the road from the field across the street and pooling down by the gym. I let the front office know, and they started making calls. A half hour later, the gym started flooding and soon the main hallway had water in it. It was crazy! I was helping kids choose books from the book room off the main hallway, and each time I came out with the kids, there was more water. Pretty soon, there were a few inches of water covering the floor. Meanwhile, the principal, custodian, and staff were busy scurrying around, making phone calls, unplugging electrical equipment, and moving things to higher levels. Teachers were sloshing through the water, barefoot and with their pants rolled up, to get to their cars that were parked in the lower lot and move them out of the flood zone. Finally, the superintendent arrived and decided it was time to send kids home. I sloshed through the water to each kid's class and took them home. I felt so bad for the staff and sad for our school. The kids have been home the last two days while the school has been getting cleaned up, but it sounds like they'll be able to go back to school tomorrow.

This was right outside the bookroom, before it got really bad.

After I brought Joel and Aubrey home early on Monday, we had to go pick up Grant from preschool. One of the roads we took had a chunk of the sidewalk missing, and the lazy, little creek running under the road looked like a rapid, rushing river! I drove carefully away from the edge that was missing and prayed as we drove over that part that we wouldn't fall through. It was so scary! I couldn't believe it when I saw this photo later on Facebook--the exact same spot just an hour or so after we were there!

On the way home from Grant's preschool, we ran into this mess (that's normally a road with a creek running under/by it, not a waterfall!). We took the long way around to avoid that intersection. I was so glad to get home, safe and sound. That was some crazy weather!