Wow, that was
nucking futs.
We were pretty much prepped early on Wed. Had plenty of supplies: various consumables, snacks, ice - running the AC super cold so when the power went out, the house would be a bit cool for a while - plenty of gas if we had to fire up the generator. Flashlights, batteries, candles which we keep on hand anyway, making sure everything was charged (and with all the notebooks / UPS we have, we could keep phones running for days), that's about it.
The shift from the more north track to the big turn across the state was concerning, I knew that would bring more surge, worse flooding, and sure enough it did.
Our house is pretty high off grade where we didn't have water in the house itself for either Matthew (2016) or Irma (2017), but both times got a lot of water in the garage - especially Matthew and because it was such a sudden storm surge the water came in fast and hard, side door, water heater drain hole, etc., our garage has a raised section in the rear, about 7-8" higher, and then another 4-5 inches step up into the utility room. Didn't really barricade the house that much, used our large HydraBarrier in front the garage but there's either a little water or a lot of water and the latter isn't going to be stopped.
Nothing in the floor of the garage would be damaged by water, power tools all up high, moved the mower and generator onto the rear section, with the generator positioned so it could be moved into the utility room. Both vehicles parked inside, the Jeep has plenty of height, the Tesla, I did what I've done with other cars: I have a roll of 10 Mil plastic, 20' x 100+, I roll out a large section into the garage, drive onto it, then tape up around the car like a sack, it's great, it would stop water even as high as the door handle, and by then, we'd have other worries.
Thursday morning we were up early, kind of just on deck, waiting, watching the news, weather apps, the thing that really concerned us was the track put it at the peak storm surge right at the high tide, and it was a very high tide and the rain even on Wed (from other storm activity) had been higher than predicted. Knowing that, we went ahead and secured a few things downstairs, a couple of rugs, some furniture, stacked a lot of stuff, like I mentioned, we did not have water in the house during previous storms, but I figured better safe than sorry.
At first it didn't seem too bad, but it just kept rising and rising, I watched it spill across our ditch and the neighbors, but the where we really kept an eye was on the side deck, that's where the AC compressor sits, so I was ready to shut it down (with the breaker) before I got submerged. The water was moving quick, it also breached from the ocean side, the HydraBarrier actually floated away away at one point.
What was amazing was the power stayed on all this time, then right about as the water got higher than the rear deck, we lost power (I still flipped the AC breaker), we hit high tide, and even 30-40 minutes later it was still rising, it was only about 1/2 up the raised area of the garage but I went ahead and moved the generator into the washroom.
It came up about 2-3" higher than the side deck (it's about 8" lower than the rear deck which sits about 2-3" lower than the floor of the house, so we were still safe - but it seemed like it wasn't going to stop - and then, about 2 hours after the high tide, the rain had stopped, the water starting moving - I checked the garage, yep, it was down. We checked the side deck, yes, right at the same height vs. 2" over.
Whew!
Once we knew the water was receding, we went into a bit of a relaxing mode for a while. The temp dropped into the high 60s, and we opened the windows, nice cool air, fired up some candles, lanterns, got out some ice cold beer - we set up some board games, had a blast, laughed, ate drank - though there was some concern about later ...
We had a second high tide at around midnight, but it was going to be a foot lower, the storm had moved past enough to not have nearly the effect, and the rain was gone for the next several hours, so we assumed the flooding wouldn't be nearly the same. It wasn't, at high tide, we watched out the bedroom windows upstairs, with a flashlight.
House was still cool when we decided everything was good, that I'd get the generator going in the morning, and then, as we were just reading a bit, I heard the sound of the purifier ... holy shit, the power was restored! We all got up, went down the kitchen, made a few hot treats, hell, even in the internet connection was up and running. So we took some more drinks upstairs, fired up the 101 Horror Movies countdown (EP4), and were thankful for - all things considered - having it go pretty good for us (lots of the area around here fared worse, and of course, the west coast was devastated).
Power washed the garage yesterday, cleaned out some old crap, also cleaned the driveway, steps, lots of silt from the river water left behind, made a supply run, everything around town up and running. Today I picked up (we had minimal tree garbage we had tree service recently and they clean up the old dead stuff nicely). Mowed, and you almost can't tell anything had happened, er, at least with the front, the rear is still a little mushy, that will take a few days to dry out.
Weather is amazing today, we're watching some movies, finishing up a game from last night, got terrific eats, we're safe and happy
Not a ton of pics to share, just this one at near peak flood ...
And our first game of Castle Panic, lit by battery lanterns and candles
