Sunday, October 4, 2015

It Doesn’t Even Have a Name

This massive rainstorm doesn’t even have a name, although it is certainly worthy of one. I imagine you have heard about the devastating rain event occurring here in South Carolina. We are in Lexington, which is probably a bit under 10 miles west of Columbia, one of the hardest hit areas. We have been very fortunate so far with no flooding issues whatsoever. Turns out our neighbors across the street used to live in Lexington for several years, so they are quite familiar with the surrounding areas. It was great to get some information about what to expect (or not) here and so forth. We exchanged phone numbers this morning and both turned off city water in case of contamination and disconnected sewer hoses from the ground connection in case the sewer system backed up.

Later today, Columbia was advising residents to boil their water. Lexington has not issued such an advisory so far, but better to protect our rig than be sorry later.

Barnyard RV Park break in rains 10042015

This is what we had for about 10 minutes this afternoon, including a wee showing of sunshine. We started on a walk, as did several others in the park, but the rains came on again, so we headed home. That’s us up front on the left.

Yes, Susan (Travel Bug), I have the AccuWeather app, along with The Weather Channel, WunderMap, FloodWatch (USGS service), iDamage, NOAA Radar, Weather Alerts, the Red Cross, FEMA and a Police Scanner app among others on my iPhone. Conditions on the site in New Jersey necessitated that we be in touch and aware of weather and our environment up there, as we were subject to severe conditions such as Nor’Easters and were parked by a river. Thanks for your suggestion!

Dave went to bed last night a bit before midnight, but I was too wired to sleep and wanted to be up to monitor what was happening since we are in an unfamiliar location. I tell ya, the rains were absolutely torrential. Epic. Biblical. My phone kept sounding with alarms. At about 4 AM this morning, I felt confident enough that flooding was not going to be an immediate issue and I was able to get about 4 hours of snooze time in my recliner with Maggie snuggled on my lap.

There were lights on in quite a few of our neighbors, so I wasn’t the only one keeping vigil.

The rain has eased up today but has been fairly steady, and it has been a bit breezy. Our forecast is calling for possibly 1-2 additional inches through Monday. We have decided to stay Monday night and continue our journey westward on Tuesday, which is looking pretty good at this point.

Amazingly, this morning quite a few rigs pulled out during heavy downpours, hoping for better conditions elsewhere. We watched them leave, hoping they would be safe. Advisories were being issued for people to stay off the roads even this morning. I hope these RVers did not run into any issues on the roads. We know some sections of I-20, I-95 and I-77 (I think that’s the one) have been closed due to flooding. There are numerous secondary roads that are flooded and washed out.

We’re just more comfortable with waiting until conditions improve a bit more and we feel it is safer to travel.

I talked with our destinations in Madison, GA (Tuesday’s stop) and Montgomery, AL to change our reservations yet once again. The park in Madison has not flooded; they did not get the rain that we have seen.

The rest of today has been just hanging out and watching The Weather Channel coverage of the events unfolding here in South Carolina.  Since we travel well stocked with groceries, it was homemade quesadillas for dinner tonight. Comfort food!

We so appreciate the messages here and on Facebook and the phone calls I’ve received today from everyone checking up on us. Ya’ll rock! It’s so nice to know so many people are thinking of us and helping keep us safe.

I hope this has made sense. I’m pretty tired tonight. I’ll have shower in a bit and then I am going to actually go to bed tonight. I bet I sleep!

Stay safe out there, okay?

Thanks for stopping by!

1 comment:

  1. Glad to hear your weather is lightening up. We're headed out Wednesday to Big Spring, TX, then on to Amarillo on Thursday. Big Spring's forecast is for 50-70% chance of T-storms and torrential rain Wednesday night into Thursday. Looks like we might be in for it on our walking weekend in Palo Duro Canyon. I sure hope not. We've never been there and we're really looking forward to it. But no way am I hiking in a canyon in a thunderstorm!

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