Rain - Be Careful What You Wish For

Drought last year.
Today, ten inches of rain in 48 hours.
All over Chicagoland roads, big and small, were closed due to flooding.
Flash flood warnings still in effect this afternoon.
Flights cancelled or delayed.
Facebook friends reporting 8 inches of water in basements.
My next door neighbor is pumping water from her lower level all day today.

I'm guessing there's water in our crawl space but so long as the furnace continues to run, I'm going to deny crawl-space-flooding as a possibility. There's a very old sump pump down there but it's been awfully quiet in the last 24 hrs. Denial can be a wonderful thing sometimes and I'm going to keep denying it until my Taxman gets home and lifts the hatch to peek under the house.

I've got plans to meet up with a dear friend from California for dinner tonight if I can make it to where she's staying. I drive a big ass decent sized pickup 4x4 so I have no really good excuses not to venture out. Except for the fact that I'm a gigantic weather-wimp when it comes to driving in questionable conditions.

On the bright side, at least Chicago news anchors have something fresh to report today. Flooded roadways and giant sinkholes that swallow up vehicles, rather than than the other dreadful news.

In the distance is our neighbor's acreage -- what was a grassy field is now the creek overflowing its banks. And closer in is the runoff from my next door neighbor's basement pumping. I'm no expert but it appears to me that she is pumping the water out about 15 feet into her front yard only to have it run back towards the house. This could take awhile.