Allen Street Flood

This afternoon we had a playdate with my friend Dawn and her little boy Jeremiah. The kids just love him (and I think that the feeling is mutual).

It started off pretty normal. We decided to sit on the porch because it was so nice outside. It had been sunny a little bit ago, before Jeremiah got out of school, but it was a bit overcast when they got to our house.

A random guy that wanted us to change our energy provider came up to talk to us and then it started to rain. I told him he could stay on our porch until the rain stopped then the rain really picked up and we had him come inside with us. We watched the crazy weather through the window for a while. Then Glenn gave the guy a ride to the library where he could wait out the storm.

When the rain slowed down we looked out and realized that the street was flooded. The streets haven't been swept since the snow melted and there are leaves and sticks and muck all over the storm drains. They needed to be unplugged.

I went to try to unplug the storm drain a few houses down and realized that the water was over my knees. (and I'm pretty tall) I enlisted the help of our neighbor whose car was flooded. She said that she has had to do this many times. Dawn, our neighbor, and I were hacking away at the muck with rakes and shovels while all 8 of our kids played and finally the water went down.

We had fun playing in the water and trying to clean out the storm drains to get the water down. That is the kind of thing that I love to do... another one of those things like shoveling and raking. There is visible evidence that "I have accomplished something!"

It was definitely a different playdate that I thought we were going to have. It was fun though. Here are some pictures Glenn posted on facebook of our fun in the flood.