The Great Flood

July started out as most months do...with a bang. Not only was it Canada Day, on Friday, the 1st, but also the birthday of two close friends. We were having a little party to celebrate them, at our house. Right before the planned party time, it started to rain.

Now let me just say, it can RAIN here. I've seldom experienced rain up north like we have here on a regular basis. So rain isn't particularly noteworthy, just annoying. There was no tropical storm or hurricane on the radar, so we really didn't pay it any mind. Our guests arrived, and said that half our road was flooding. We peeked out and the road looked good by us. Party on.

Wow. It's really raining out there, isn't it? We stepped out on the screened in porch to take a look and right away saw that something was wrong...

For reference, this is a picture taken the next day - but it shows a view that you would expect to see when looking out at the lake. (Although the water level in that pic is still extremely high, compared to normal. There is usually much more of a bank/drop down)

But, stepping out onto the porch, we stepped into water - the outdoor carpet on the floor was soaked - not just on the edges, which happens, but the entire thing was sopping wet, even in the middle of the porch

This is what we saw. Note that stump to the right of the trampoline is the same stump on the left side of the above pic. It had been raining for about an hour.

Uhhhh, where's the kayak? It's usually by that tree there, and well...we don't tie it down...because...where's it going to go? The kayak had floated away from it's normal perch and was now in our front side yard. Grey says, with a sense of urgency "Oh my goodness! God has decided to flood the earth!!" And we laughed, because we knew that wouldn't be true - but it did feel like things were moving that way.

The rain let up for a little bit, and we went out in our rainboots and umbrellas to get some pics. And then it started up again, hard. Water was literally RIGHT UP to the back steps, and right up to the side of our house.

This was a little concerning - we don't have flood insurance. Because we were told we don't need it. It never floods here, we are not in a "zone" for it.

The trees to the right and middle are usually *outside* the lake,

This pic was taken before the heavy rain round 2 started up again

Brian estimates that the water level rose 6 to 8 feet in about 2.5 hrs. It stopped short of getting into our crawl space/foundation, thankfully. The street in front of our house was not flooded, and neighbours were parking all over in front of us and having to walk in (and it's a long street - about a mile). They said it hasn't flooded like this since Hurricane Isabelle in 2003

Receding waters. Once the sun came out on the 2nd, it didn't take long for all the water to be back in it's place.

When I got up, it was already almost all gone

You can see the "waterline" left by dirt and whatever where the lake swelled to. It was so crazy!

Uh oh. The flood washed away a cable box in our back yard.

The very first pic I posted was taken at noon, all the water back in the lake! We were really thankful it was all just the yard, and we didn't have to deal with a real flood (in the house), and unlike some of our neighbours, our cars were fine on high ground, so we made it through unscathed.

Another funny comment from Grey, seeing the flooding waters, sees a baseball floating around (that had been left in the yard), and he says "AW! My precious bayth-ball!" (He only says his S's correct some of the time, still:-)

We had a fun party too! And we played a hilarious game, we loved it! It's called Telestrations!