yowza ... what a night ... for about 2 hours today we kept having brown outs ... the lights would go out and slowly come back on like they were on a dimmer switch ... then the next thing I knew the sky just opened up ... rain was pouring down and an unbelievable strength and it was blowing sideways ... thunder and lightening were happening simultaneously and there wasn't a pause at all between ... then hail started coming down with the wind ... deck chairs were flying across the yard and patio ... all the while the lights kept going off and on ... it was freaky ... when the lightening started to get really really bad my mom and I decided we should go downstairs into my and David's apartment cause it is in the basement ...


when we got downstairs we went to the french doors to see the river that had formed in the back yard ... the water was rushing through the yard so hard core it had separated the grass as we were standing there we realized there was a huge puddle on the floor ... the water was not only rushing through the yard it was rushing in the door ... we grabbed towels and started mopping up the mess ... when I walked over to the window by David's desk ... there was a puddle of water on the ledge so I decided to check the bedroom and bingo ... same there ... what a bitch ... we mopped everything up and David and I decided to go out to the garage to have a smoke and check out the storm ... as we walked in we heard my mom yell ... "Liz bring me all the towels in the mud room ... the dining room is standing in water ...


so much water had come in the dining room window that the wall was soaked and there was about 2 inches of water on the floor ... while my mom used the towels around the window David got the mop and bucket and started sopping up the water ... while I went around to check the other windows ... the living room window, two windows in the family room, the sliding glass door in the breakfast room and one window in the guest room ... all had water coming in the window ... puddles on the floor and the carpet was soaked ... I grabbed more towels to stop the damage and decided to check upstairs to see what had happened there ...


the office, my parents bedroom and my mom's closet all had water coming in the window ... it was just a mess ... we got more towels and cleaned all that up ... our dinner was ready so I went down to put everything on the table when David came upstairs and said "The basement is flooded ... I mean really flooded" ... my mom and I went downstairs to find over 2 inches of water in the two store rooms ... all of mine and David's stuff was standing in water ... we were all pissed and in shock ...


David and I went up to eat our now coldish dinner while my mom called to see how late Home Depot was open ... once we finished dinner we headed for the Depot to get a wet/dry vac ... it was the only way we were going to get all the water cleaned up ...


a lot of it looked like it had dried while we were gone but we opened up the vac anyway ... it took us over an hour ... but we wound up sucking up 18 gallons of water ... and that was just what we could get to ... there were some boxes and stuff we couldn't move ... that are probably ruined ... but the huge puddles we got to ... I can't believe there was so much water ...


thank god we are living here cause I don't know what my mom would have done without us ... my dad is only home on the weekends and she would have been freaking out ... it felt great that we could be here to help out ...