Rigorously Undocumented continues to languish in obscurity but ...

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Flood

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10/28/12 Evacuation order ignored.  Neighbors staying.  Joe puts sandbags in his down-sloping driveway.  Go to bed thinking that the next 36 hours will tell.

10/29 Mid day heavy wind, waves.  James and I go out to see the shore.  Waves churning but tide is low.  Obsessed by tide chart & weather report.  Power still on.  Essentially a day off.  6:00PM get call from Shelly that street is flooding and can see gutters filling up from east, preceded by foam.  Matt takes his and his parents cars to high ground.  James and I decide to do the same, as gutters get deeper.  In Haren's car I U-turn, go up Penn and find that people have parked on the Lafayette Blvd median so I do so too followed by James.  As I return I see flood coming in from Lafayette meeting flow from east.  Water soon rises to cover street.  Thinking, okay, that’s not too bad.  Some time after 7:00 lights out, break out the flashlights the candles.  I got D cells instead of C cells!  No distractions now just wind and gloom outside.  Keep going to breezeway to look even though Haren wants me to come inside.  Water continues to rise, over curb over sidewalk.  Justine is upset; Haren says it’s only stuff.  It is about 7:45; I got it in my head that the tide peaked at 7:20 but remember it was due at 8:20.  Water laps the rear tire of my car parked in our up-sloping driveway.  I pull the car up as far as I can go considering moving the junk from the front of the garage to get the car up a little higher.  Water rises to rear tire again, flows over the sidewalk wall and on to the lawn, now water covers the entire street.  Our lawn and our neighbors’ are submerged, the flood lapping at their front steps.  It creeps up the walk to ours.  Things begin to float by, driven by wind directly out of the east, which is creating choppy waves in the water.  I go up to the third floor open the window and take 3 fast shots.  Justine is trying to find a way to get their new couch off the floor and I yell that’ll be the least of our worries. Upstairs the room is bright with candles and flashlights.  There’s nothing we can do: have a drink, play some Scrabble but I think not until the water goes back down.  James and I go to the breezeway again and again.  Moran’s driveway is completely full of water, its white walls making it look like a swimming pool.  The wind dies down a bit and we dash over to find them on their porch taking it all in.  The water has brushed aside the sandbags and punched in their basement garage door.  A little after 8:00 the flood is almost all the way up our driveway, the rear wheel of my car is now half under water.  The wind picks up again and we go back inside.  Upstairs I try sitting and being calm but go down again to see the water, the temporary shore of the Atlantic Ocean has arrived at the foot of the step up to our house.  We begin playing Scrabble, what else is there to do?  At 8:40 I go down again.  Right on time the tide has turned and the water is slightly lower.  Over the next hour it continues to recede.  We go to bed stuffing in earplugs to keep out the sound of car alarms.  Justine says that by midnight the street was clear.  We are insanely lucky.

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