First Flood of Spring -- May 13, 2014

Six months since our last post -- a tough, snowy, cold, but rainfree winter -- and now it's time for the Oak Avenue Spring Floods!! It's either been 91 and humid or 48 and windy this spring. All in the same day sometimes. Mostly cold, however. It was so cold for so long the flowers and trees bloomed and foliated almost overnight. They knew it was May and time to get cracking. 

Last night's storm was a series of intermittent rain dumps, followed by brief respites of calm. So, yeah, the backyards flooded. And the pumps were out in force this morning. A new guy in the neighborhood got water in his basement, so he's p.o.'d. Turns out people aren't very forthcoming around here re: water getting into the house. "We had some once, but that was the only time." Liar liars. 

We checked the rainfall levels and found there was 3.19 inches for Glenview, the closest town listed. And it wasn't a slow and steady rain, but a short, nasty load of wetness that unloaded several times. 

And wait until you see the size of the house we watched going up last fall. The one that's sure to create even more water in our yards/window wells/basements. It's big. Really big. A footprint the size of Sasquatch. Watch. There will be some major water coming our way, whooshing down the hill from that place. 

We ought to make an Oak Avenue Floods logo out of this pump. It's been working overtime since early early this morning. It was past 3:00 PM when we shot this photo. 

When French drains go bad -- this six foot pond is over one foot deep and keeps getting larger and larger as the years go by. This is all that's left of a 20' x 20' patch of flooding -- thanks to the runoff from the giant houses above and behind our yards.