Tuesday is for ...

... recovery, restoration, readjustment, rest, and return.

Yup, I live in Flemington, NJ, and most of that rain fell within about 6 hours. 

First, an apology. I wrote last Thursday's poetry post early on Wednesday morning, when we had only had a few thunderstorms in MD, and Ida's full effects on the northeast were really just beginning. After re-reading that post yesterday, I'm a bit ashamed and regret how glib and tone-deaf it sounds. Asking people to stitch together what beauty there is while they are undergoing devastating flooding, loss, and death is inappropriate. I've learned a lesson to not post so far ahead, and I am sorry for that post at that time.

I've also learned some other lessons. I naively assumed that we would get some rain from Ida, I might have to use the shop-vac to vacuum up any water in the cellar in NJ, and anxiously waited out the tornado warnings and 6-8" of rain in MD on Wednesday. A friend sent me these photos from NJ on Thursday, and I knew that things were much worse than I expected. 

These are from an intersection about a mile away from our house in NJ. There was flash flooding, cars were inundated, and more than 300 people had to be rescued from the water. 

This is three houses away from ours, and while it's hard to understand the perspective, that large water cooler bottle is floating down the street that has turned into a river with more than two feet of water.

We drove home to NJ on Friday morning, not knowing what we might encounter once we got there. It's a good thing we waited until Friday because the roads were impassable before then. This is what they looked like on Thursday:

That sign is pointing towards Route 295, the way we head to MD. That thing that looks like a dam in the middle is the concrete median in the road between the north and southbound lanes.

We got home to NJ okay, found that we had probably had 8-10" of water in the cellar, but the water had receded quite a bit by Friday. John and I used our shop-vacs, started the dehumidifier, and tried to make our way to Ryan's house in PA. We had talked to him numerous times and knew that he had almost 10" of water in his cellar, even though his sump pump was running continuously. John gave him instructions on how to shut down his gas hot water heater and furnace before the flood waters reached the pilot lights. He also turned off breakers before the water reached electric outlets in the cellar, being careful not to shut off the one to the sump pump. 

We got there Friday night after weaving our way around roads closed due to flooding, downed trees, and wires, and all three of us started using shop-vacs to suck water out of the cellar. Part of Ryan's cellar is finished and we were trying to save the carpet. The sump pump was still pumping and we took almost 100 gallons out with the shop-vacs. We repeated the process again Saturday morning and only got three gallons then. The carpet didn't feel wet but I'm sure it still was. We're now running a dehumidifier and fans, trying to see if we can save the carpet and the sheetrock, but that remains to be seen. 

My sister also lives in PA and while she didn't experience flooding, she did have a giant tree fall on their new garage. The whole front part of the roof is damaged and trusses and beams inside are cracked, so this will be a big repair job. My sister lost her son in May, so as bad as 2020 was, 2021 is so much worse. At least this garage mishap can be fixed.

John was traveling in September of 1999, which meant that I was home alone with the kids during the three days of Hurricane Floyd. We got more than 12" of rain, and more than 12" in the cellar. We didn't have a sump pump then, so I was busy siphoning water out with two garden hoses. I learned my own lessons about shutting off our oil furnace before the water reached the fire box and being very thankful that it worked when we were able to re-start it. We installed a sump pump after that, and it's been able to keep up with water through Hurricane Irene in 2011 and Sandy in 2012. The biggest problem with Sandy was the prolonged power outage (8 days for us), but with John's magic touch we ran a generator. Ryan's neighbor came over on Saturday and told us that they had a storm with 8" of rainfall two years ago, and his finished basement was flooded when his sump pump couldn't keep up. He has since installed a second one and a battery backup, and his cellar remained dry through Ida. I'll spare you my lectures on climate change, but it's clear that we can no longer use historical data about local weather-related disasters that happened in the past when planning for the future. We must take global warming into account. I have heard this storm called a once-in-a lifetime event, but I don't think that is the case. We are going to be prepared for the next time by installing second sump pumps and battery backups in NJ and Ryan's house in PA. 

I was having some trouble counting my blessings on Saturday morning when I was tired of using the shop-vac, emptying it, looking at all the damage in Ryan's house, and my back was killing me. But I quickly realized that we were all okay, we had the resources to deal with the flooding issues we were having, and things could have been so much worse. Ida caused 66 deaths in the storm, with 27 deaths in NJ alone and six in our county. Four people are still missing. On our way over to Ryan's, John and I saw a pickup truck that had been swept away by the floodwaters and the driver died trapped inside. It was a sobering sight.

This post is long enough already, and I'm mainly writing things to remind myself, just in case I start to forget some of the lessons I've learned. Don't post too far ahead, listen and pay attention to the weather, don't take flash flood warnings lightly, be prepared, and be over-prepared if possible. Above all, be grateful for all that you have, and especially for the people in your life.