Flood Watch

I don't know if the Georgia drought is officially over yet, but it has certainly been wet enough for me. One morning last week the rain had been falling steadily for several hours when our morning alarm went off, so we viewed our back yard with concern. But everything seemed to be fine so we trudged off the 16 miles to work in Duluth.

Two hours later Jimmie buzzed me in my office to tell me that there were flood warnings in Dacula. Apparently there was a flood watch across a wide area of north Georgia, but our concern was a vacant lot behind our home. You may recall that last July it had funneled massive amounts of water down on us that had then flooded the house. Jimmie had worked hard to make what changes he could to our yard to allow incoming water to escape, but this was the first major storm since for us know if those measures were going to be enough. And it was a given that there would be incoming water because so far nothing has been done to keep it from rushing at us again. The city declared it was the fault of a county-owned drainage culvert, and the county has apparently just ignored the whole thing. But the "new" had not yet worn off the flooring we had recently installed so we were definitely not in the mood for a case of dejavu. After a few minutes of debating the necessity we heard that even heavier rains were on the way so Jimmie and I made a mad rush back home.

The now familiar river was running through our backyard once more. The measures Jimmie had taken were helping to channel the water out so our backyard was only partially submerged. But water was also traveling in an unexpected direction and pooling by a rock wall Jimmie had built to hide from view another county culvert beside our yard. He promptly started moving the slabs of granite so the water could escape. It was then that help arrived. Katrece Howard and her three kids had rushed over to lend a hand if needed, so Seth and Nathan quickly moved the remaining rocks. By the time we got inside we were all very wet and cold.

But the water stayed outside this time around!

- Linda