Splish Splash

We're having a bit of weather here this week. Yesterday morning, I went into the garage to get something before leaving for work, and stepped in an enormous puddle of water. I started bailing with a sponge and a bucket (the mop fell apart last week, and I haven't bought a new head for it yet) while waiting for DH to finish his shower and investigate the cause. After four buckets of water, I decided this was a ridiculous way to do it. Instead, I grabbed a bunch of "dog towels" (cheap white towels from Costco that we use for everything dog-related), sopped up the water with them, then put them in the washer to spin dry. Repeat until floor is dry.

In the meantime, DH finished his shower and took a look outside. He didn't find the puddle by the door that he was expecting. He then looked up and saw the waterfall coming down from the gutter. We hadn't gotten around to cleaning the leaves out of the gutter yet this year, so he got to do it yesterday in the rain, while I mopped.

Today it's raining even harder. Strawberry Creek runs in front of our building at work, and it's normally a little trickle. Today we walked over the bridge and looked down to see a raging torrent! Muddy brown water, way over the banks, rushing downstream.

Just got an e-mail from our town saying that the power is out to both B's and M's schools. Not any of the other schools in town, just theirs. Since our house lies between the two schools, I'm assuming we don't have power, either.

Update (10:21 am): Middle school is officially closing for the day. No word from the elementary school yet. 

Update to the update (10:46 am): Middle school has power again, so they will stay open.

And The Heavens Opened

Today's forecast was "a chance of showers." They didn't say anything about "a chance of a deluge, right when school lets out," which is what actually happened. No one had a raincoat today!

DH and I lucked out. We walked to our car after lunch to head home for the car swap (Monday evenings require both of us to have a car, but we share a carpool parking permit), and a minute after we got in, the downpour started. A quick dash into the house, and we were set for raincoats.

The carpool lines at both B's and M's school were incredibly long, and there were a lot of soggy kids standing outside. At M's school, the middle-school kids are generally too cool to worry about a bit of rain, but it was coming down hard enough that everyone took shelter while waiting for their carpools.

Local weather station says we received 0.81 inches of rain in slightly over an hour.