If the rain comes...

They run and hide their heads.  If you said, "The Beatles," you get 10 bonus points.  Only 10?  Yeah, that one was easy.

We were planning to get out of here this weekend.  Apparently, Mother Nature heard about our plans... torrential rains in the middle of the night.  We woke up to news reports of coastal flooding and had our own water issue in the house: one of our bedroom windows is leaking.  Well, not the window, but something around it.  There is wet dry-wall (is that an oxymoron?).  We know this means having to tear out said dry-wall and exterior siding to find the source of the leak.  It probably would not have been an issue if our hurricane shutters were down... or, maybe the box housing the rolled up shutters is the source of the leak?  Either way, we aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

I called our builder - he is out of town and won't be back for a couple weeks.  He assured me that "It is all repairable..." - we would rather have him do the work than try to find someone before he gets back.

During a lull in the rain, we got out the ladder and re-caulked around the top of the shutter on that window.  The hope was the rain would hold off long enough to let that dry.  Apparently, Mother Nature heard that hope, too... the next wave rolled in, pounding even harder.  On the bright side, it doesn't seem to be getting any worse around the window (I did pull some old caulking out).

On the not-so-bright side, we don't have much food in the house, since we were planning to head out again.  I suggested we run to SPI to have a burger at BurgerFi... after all, the rain had let up again.  Apparently, Mother Nature heard that plan, too - once on the causeway (2 1/2 miles across the water to SPI), the sky opened up and pounded rain down so hard you could barely see beyond the hood of the truck.

Well, this isn't much fun.

Once across the causeway, the rain let up enough so the wipers could keep up... sorta.  We turned left, up the main drag, heading north towards BurgerFi.  Within a few blocks, we could see that this is a bad idea: the sewers can't keep up, the streets are starting to flood...

Looking to the left in that image, the curb and gutter are under a foot or so of water.  Looking to the right in that image, the curb and gutter are under about 10" of water.  It is slowly filling the road to where only the turn lane in the middle is above water.  That is going to be a problem when people going both directions head for the high point in the middle.  Fortunately, there isn't much traffic... just us hungry folks out and about.

BurgerFi is further down the road, and I have no desire to push on - the water is getting deeper as we go north.  Time to turn tail and head for home.  Sticking mostly to the turn lane, we get back to the causeway... hopefully it will be less of an issue on our side of causeway.

There is another restaurant on our side of the causeway, but it is apparent that the streets on this side are starting to fill, too.  Time to head back to our island.  A sad sight on our island: the parking lot in front of the rec center is torn out for re-paving... it is now a giant mud bog.  No doubt this will put them WAY behind schedule.

Speaking of being behind schedule, my belly is telling me we are now a couple hours late for lunch.  Joan says, "We will find something to eat at the house, then go to the store when the rain lets up."

"Shhhhhhhh!  Mother Nature will hear you!"

Apparently, she did.  Joan had some pulled pork in the freezer, so we didn't starve.  An hour later, the rain has not let up.  The new caulk (and the plastic I put over it) seems to have helped with the water intrusion.  I still dread the eventual repair that is necessary.

They didn't mention our area, but the local weather weasels are saying that some areas have had 8 to 10 inches of rain in the past 24 hours.

Yeah, I don't think we're going anywhere anytime soon.

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On edit: When the rain let up a bit, we made a run to the store... now, we are covered if the streets are flooded.  More coastal flood warnings for tonight; inland, too.

Driving by our rec center, here's what the torn-up parking lot looks like...

It is going to be a while for that to dry up enough that they can get back to work on re-paving it.

3.5" of rain so far today.