The Flood

 Note the lampost in the water. There is also a sidewalk somewhere under there.

 The sandbag barrier seemed like a good place to pose.

 That green lamp normally illuminates a romantic riverside wooden sidewalk. 

{I'll be the first to say that this is a boring outfit, but it really seemed the only appropriate way to dress when taking a walk on a 40 degree, windy day to see the flooded river. I am wearing a pretty awesome shirt--designed by my sister who works at a custom printing shop (talk about a convenient place for a relative to work...). It's the University of Michigan logo but it says Malaysia--representing two of my favorite homes.}
As far as floods go, I don't think this one really compares to most of the great floods of history, but it's the biggest, most damaging flood that I've seen, so that makes it rather momentous in my eyes. Our part of the world isn't used to floods at all, so I don't think we were quite prepared for what could happen. But last week's record-breaking rainstorms have swelled the river and taken out roads and basements.

I had to try three different routes one morning on the way to school in order to find a road that wasn't under water, and all week, the salon was practically empty as we had clients calling and saying that they couldn't make it out of their own streets. I came home Friday night to a sign declaring that the street I live on was closed. Of course, I just drove around the sign--there's no other way to get home! There was no water between the entrance to my street and my house, but beyond my house, our street has been totally washed out in two separate places. Intersections, interstate exits, and even restaurants are closed due to the flooding--and a lot of normal people are having trouble with leaking in their basements. Sump pumps are sold out at every hardware store for miles around.

Speaking of that, Sunday night, Angel worked his first night shift in over a year. My grandparents' basement had sprouted leaks in 3 places, and they  had 3 different shop vacs running continuously for days in order to keep up with the water. It was a family effort to keep their basement dry. My grandpa, uncles, and Angel took shifts--when it was Angel's turn on Sunday night, the water was still coming so fast that he was emptying out a 12 gallon shop-vac every 40 minutes.