The Flood

[Firebrand]

[Copied directly from the post I made at the KH forums]

Good and dry day for all of you guys, I feel happy to be around again after the big flood that has happened on my local vicinity, it's been two wacky long days... it all began on sunday night, strong rain was falling, my backyard got flooded because of all the water that fell down, fortunately I've got a sewer for it to flow away of my house... the water flow wasn't smooth, but it's level was low enough for preventing it to enter my house... I went to sleep that day.

At 3:00 AM my brother waked me up to tell me about the water level on the street... I opened my house's front door to find the water level just below the level of the staircase that goes to the house garage, "This isn't normal" I told him... quickly we grabbed some furniture and electronic appliances to move them upstairs on the house... fortunately, even while it still rained, the water level didn't got any higher than that, I did had some water leaking inside, but it wasn't a big deal .

Later that day, when there was enough day light, I could finally see where the water was, my backyard began to get dried, so I moved the dry furniture to the back of my house, but there were some wet furniture that got lost (nothing too fancy, just some chairs and tables...). Then the local news were broadcasting from the source of the problem... the rain wasn't the only culprit of this mess... a tube carrying pluvial water got broken because of the pressure of the water flowing through it, making it crash and drop loads of dirty water, since I live in a valley, the water went down the small hills around it and provoked the big flood. I began cleaning out the dirt from the backyard (since I couldn't even get to the house garage), after that the water level began dropping slowly (but I've got stuck inside of my house for the whole Monday)...

Then the worse began going... there was an electrical short circuit... making everything go dark, fortunately enough I had canned food, bottled water and batteries for flashlights prepared, which were the perfect solution for the rest of the day...

By 12:00 AM of Monday, the water level was on the street sidewalk and continued going down... so I could then go out of my house. Yesterday's morning the water was gone, but the smell and dirt was all around the street... so we began cleaning up... the place was a mess, there are people who wasn't as lucky as myself... they lost it all... furniture, food, electric appliances... all ...

It's a sad time around here... yesterday's afternoon electrical power returned and I began testing my electrical appliances to see if they weren't damaged by the water... fortunately most of it works, but I lost my dev computer's HD , thought this was the least of my problems really . Since I didn't had much to do while trapped in my house, I've got my digital camera ready and began taking some photos of the mess in my street, they are amazing looking... people sailing in polyurethane and plastic rafts, taking furniture and other people! (That's a clever one really ) and cars wrecked one over another by the water strength, it's really impressive to see that! I must say I feel very fortunate to be able to tell my story and to have almost no problem on my house, after seeing what others suffered... it's a shame to see things like this on the 21st century, where technology is so damn advanced... just because someone didn't made their work orccensured .

I'm still in the process of fixing all up around... I'm sure today I'll be finished. I'm also amazed to hear that the president did come here with some guy from the UN, it's the first time I see that interest to pop up on our governance to be honest, I guess there's a first time for everything in our lives, I'm really shocked by the impression myself... maybe that's why I'm posting about this, hehehe! But I'm grateful to have survived this mess too, life is great!!

I'll try to post the photos I got later, for now I'll leave others do the work:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090909/ap_ ... _mexico_un
http://www.samaylive.com/news/rain-caus ... 55351.html
http://www.dc50tv.com/news/nationworld/ ... 1768.story
http://nachofoto.com/gallery/Heavy_rain ... ber_2009-1 <- These are the most impressive images!

[Gez]

Well around here the water problem is a drought. Too much of it somewhere, not enough elsewhere.

[Enjay]

We had a lot of rain on Thursday and Friday and a few roads were washed away, a bridge collapsed and quite a few houses and businesses got flooded. however, the only impact it had on me was that a few kids couldn't get into school and one road that I tried to travel on was blocked and diverted away from because it was under water.

[Paul]

Flood is a problem here in my country, in Poland. The heavy raining sunk several smaller towns (especially those by the rivers) in the east-south and north-east areas (the territory near the banks of rivers and where there is depression, i.e. a lowering in the ground below the sea level). I've seen the devastation - people lost their entire houses. It's a terrible cataclysm, like all others.

I also experienced, to a very tiny percent, what flood is about. A year ago heavy raining caused a flood in my garage. It is lower in the ground and the road near my house was literally a flattened out pipe making all the rain that gathered flow rapidly straight to my home. If I hadn't created a dam out of some towels and stuff my entire basement would've been flooded.
But the rains attacked again, at night this time. Using buckets and cups we tried to take out all the water that gathered in a small, short canal near the entrance to my garage. All in the flashes of thunder. Can't say it wasn't fun, in some not-very-fun way. Now though we bought a small, automatic pump.

[Firebrand]

Yep, I decided to get a rubber raft for things like these, heh!

Nothing like that had happened before, it was a bit strange for me, but as Paul says, it was fun in it´s own way.