Close Encounters of the Rainy Kind
This morning we totaled the rain we dumped out of our gauge over the past 36 hours: 5.6 inches. To be sure, it's not as impressive as the 8 inches that fell elsewhere in the county, and our intermittent pepperings of pea-sized hail don't hold a candle to the 1.75-inch diameter hail that fell in Hutchinson and covered the ground, but our part of the world had some drama nonetheless. And the places and events our family encountered through the weather events since yesterday are out of the ordinary for us.
Surprisingly perhaps because of how peripheral our connection is, some of the drama that involved our family was intertwined with the welfare of Jared Oatney's car dealership. Grant works for Jared part time, so he was prepared to respond when Jared called from Wichita after lunch to ask him to move all the vehicles on the lot to the inside of the shop because he had heard that a hailstorm was headed toward Partridge. Grant finished the job ahead of the storm and assumed all was well.
Jared had gone to Wichita to a car auction. He drove there in a car Shane is trying to sell--a Q45 Infiniti. The auction bid for the car was lower than Shane is willing to take, so Jared started home again in Shane's car after the auction. En route, his wife called and said it was hailing at home, so, to protect Shane's car, Jared turned around and went back to Wichita to cool his heels till the weather threat subsided. When he finally arrived home at 7:00 he found his shop flooded with a foot of water, with all the vehicles inside. I haven't heard details about how they managed, but the vehicles were eventually all moved to higher ground. The office in the shop was not flood-proof, and is in a sorry state, according to Shane's report. He talked to Jared when he went over last night to retrieve his car and put it into our shed overnight.
Before he left work yesterday Hiromi heard that the "Big M" intersection SE of Hutchinson was flooded, so he decided to go home through town instead of by his normal route, which would take him through the "Big M" intersection. He encountered many flooded streets and stalled cars, but he left town finally by way of 4th street and then jogged over on the 96 bypass to Highway 50 and came home by way of Partridge Road from the south. He was very glad to be home.
Joel had gone to move his car at work when he saw that the draw behind the office had broadened to take in most of the parking lot behind the office. He had to jump across water to get to his car and got it moved. Because of water rushing across the road nearby, instead of coming home the usual way (turning north at the driveway), he turned south and came home on Morgan Ave. Water flowed across the road at various places on his way home, but he got through without incident.
Here at home we recently had a culvert installed by the county at one of the driveways to the shed north of the house. This was a non-optional move after a recent rain in which the ditches in front of our house nearly overflowed. The road crew employee who talked to us said that they were concerned about the roadbed eventually being damaged by the volume of water that pooled there. Their crew actually pumped out the water and sent it across the road to flow to Salt Creek. The county also cleaned out the culvert under another driveway and dug out the ditches to improve drainage. Earlier this week a tractor and drill had seeded something in the bottom of the ditch, in an apparent effort to get vegetation established to prevent the culverts from filling in with silt.
The good news is that the ditches drain better now, and we don't have a lake this morning just beyond the front lawn. The bad news is that around the new culvert, the still-loose soil has washed out about five feet back from the end of the newly-installed culvert. That loose soil is down at the bottom of the newly dug-out ditch and inside the new culvert. I can only imagine where the seeds are that should shortly be starting to grow in the bottom of the ditch.
We have water leaking into the basement, and mopping, dehumidifying, and taking up throw rugs has all commenced accordingly. But our humble abode is mostly in as good shape as ever.
This morning my brother Lowell called to ask how much rain we had, etc. As an understated aside, he commented that he hopes our cousin Delmar, for whom Lowell was scheduled yesterday to do a roof tear-off, was dealing okay with the fact that he hadn't gotten the tear-off done. I suspect he's feeling like the rest of us--thankful for all the troubles that bypassed us, and thankful for another blessedly ordinary day in which to go about our quiet lives.
Surprisingly perhaps because of how peripheral our connection is, some of the drama that involved our family was intertwined with the welfare of Jared Oatney's car dealership. Grant works for Jared part time, so he was prepared to respond when Jared called from Wichita after lunch to ask him to move all the vehicles on the lot to the inside of the shop because he had heard that a hailstorm was headed toward Partridge. Grant finished the job ahead of the storm and assumed all was well.
Jared had gone to Wichita to a car auction. He drove there in a car Shane is trying to sell--a Q45 Infiniti. The auction bid for the car was lower than Shane is willing to take, so Jared started home again in Shane's car after the auction. En route, his wife called and said it was hailing at home, so, to protect Shane's car, Jared turned around and went back to Wichita to cool his heels till the weather threat subsided. When he finally arrived home at 7:00 he found his shop flooded with a foot of water, with all the vehicles inside. I haven't heard details about how they managed, but the vehicles were eventually all moved to higher ground. The office in the shop was not flood-proof, and is in a sorry state, according to Shane's report. He talked to Jared when he went over last night to retrieve his car and put it into our shed overnight.
Before he left work yesterday Hiromi heard that the "Big M" intersection SE of Hutchinson was flooded, so he decided to go home through town instead of by his normal route, which would take him through the "Big M" intersection. He encountered many flooded streets and stalled cars, but he left town finally by way of 4th street and then jogged over on the 96 bypass to Highway 50 and came home by way of Partridge Road from the south. He was very glad to be home.
Joel had gone to move his car at work when he saw that the draw behind the office had broadened to take in most of the parking lot behind the office. He had to jump across water to get to his car and got it moved. Because of water rushing across the road nearby, instead of coming home the usual way (turning north at the driveway), he turned south and came home on Morgan Ave. Water flowed across the road at various places on his way home, but he got through without incident.
Here at home we recently had a culvert installed by the county at one of the driveways to the shed north of the house. This was a non-optional move after a recent rain in which the ditches in front of our house nearly overflowed. The road crew employee who talked to us said that they were concerned about the roadbed eventually being damaged by the volume of water that pooled there. Their crew actually pumped out the water and sent it across the road to flow to Salt Creek. The county also cleaned out the culvert under another driveway and dug out the ditches to improve drainage. Earlier this week a tractor and drill had seeded something in the bottom of the ditch, in an apparent effort to get vegetation established to prevent the culverts from filling in with silt.
The good news is that the ditches drain better now, and we don't have a lake this morning just beyond the front lawn. The bad news is that around the new culvert, the still-loose soil has washed out about five feet back from the end of the newly-installed culvert. That loose soil is down at the bottom of the newly dug-out ditch and inside the new culvert. I can only imagine where the seeds are that should shortly be starting to grow in the bottom of the ditch.
We have water leaking into the basement, and mopping, dehumidifying, and taking up throw rugs has all commenced accordingly. But our humble abode is mostly in as good shape as ever.
This morning my brother Lowell called to ask how much rain we had, etc. As an understated aside, he commented that he hopes our cousin Delmar, for whom Lowell was scheduled yesterday to do a roof tear-off, was dealing okay with the fact that he hadn't gotten the tear-off done. I suspect he's feeling like the rest of us--thankful for all the troubles that bypassed us, and thankful for another blessedly ordinary day in which to go about our quiet lives.
posted by Mrs. I at
7:47 AM
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