I Love New York Travel

Photo taken as we were leaving Virginia a week ago.

We didn’t know it at the time, but on the heels of this storm that followed us up north came another, more insidious storm that tore through Joplin, Missouri. And then another, through Oklahoma City.

The storms in the south are so much stranger than ours here in the North, at least as far as I could tell with my limited time spent in Virginia. The clouds are angrier and “bushier.” But the rain is not as violent. Here in New York, where we experienced severe flash flooding in late April, the clouds were their regular bland gray, as if someone had smoothed mortar over the skies. But from them dumped 2 inches of rain in a matter of hours. And it’s not terribly uncommon, either.

When we were in Virginia, the clouds always looked so terribly fierce– menacing swirls and dark circles, but the rain that dropped was nothing compared to our northern rains of Biblical proportions.

I did spot a funnel cloud while driving outside of Richmond, Va. I’d never seen such a thing before.

The photo is a little blurry, taken with my iPhone as we raced 60mph down the highway!

STRANGE.

That’s the old hot water heater. It’s dead. You can see the waterline from the flooding, and the motor oil that spilled into the water.

We were two days without hot water, which wasn’t a big deal. I was actually sweating out how we were going to get a plumber over here so quickly to install our new tank…. I wasn’t even sure I could locate his rack card printing card phone number! It was a Friday morning and the house and yard were all mud and and I didn’t think he’d be able to come until Monday or Tuesday. FIVE DAYS without hot water?! No way. We were a muddy mess from the cleanup and needed showers.

So the husband installed the water tank!!!!! Can you believe it?! He did the gas line and everything! Oh I love him!!

I just wish it would STOP raining. For a LONG time.

Oopsie. We accidentally left a few containers of used engine oil in the basement. When it flooded, water spilled into the containers and the oil went everywhere.

:(

This is no easy tretinoin gel. This is MOTOR OIL. Toxic waste. We had to have the DEC come over, because we couldn’t pump this water out into the stormwater drainage basin. :( Thank God, the spill was contained. We used these special absorbent pads that absorb only oil, not water. They are pretty neat things. We have about 15 big garbage bags full of used ones, now!

*sigh* Today it’s raining again, and we’ve got more flash flood warnings. Well, the basement is cleaned out so if it floods, there’s nothing to destroy except our brand new water heater. :|