Anybody remember how to build an Ark?

[buffo]

Hey everyone...

As you've no doubt seen on the news, Charleston SC is being hit with the worst flooding since Hurricane Hugo back in 1989. The sea at high tide yesterday was over 8 ft above mean level. This allowed waves to flow over the battery sea wall! Here's what it looked like:



What makes it worse is the incredible amount of rain we've gotten. While the National Weather Service is reporting 13 inches of rain for downtown, some areas north of the downtown area have experienced more than 2 FEET of rain since Friday evening, with more on the way. Amazingly, this means that there are areas around North Charleston and Summerville that are flooded worse than the downtown peninsula!

That being said, I am very lucky. My home is on high ground in a subdivision that is close to the Ashley river, so we have very good stormwater drainage. (There is a large stormwater drainage ditch right next to my property, in fact.) So my house is dry, although my yard is going to be soupy for several days I'm sure. Still, I want to thank everyone who has called, e-mailed, texted, and PMed me recently. Rest assured that I will be just fine.

Other homeowners in my area are not so lucky. There are houses less than a mile from me that have 6-12 inches of standing water inside them. And downtown there are houses with 3 feet of water in them. Also, to the north-west from where I am they have actually had to rescue people from their homes due to flash-flooding conditions. They have 4 deaths reported so far. (!)

They are calling this a 500-year rain event! I've never experienced anything like this before, and I surely don't want to ever again... I guess the moral of the story is to check out the elevation of your property before you buy it. I actually considered other houses in this area that were lower, back when we bought our house. I'm very glad now that I opted for this one on higher ground!

And if you're thinking about a trip to Charleston, you might want to wait a while...

Adam

[dkumpula]

Glad to hear you are doing alright, Adam. We are pretty wet inland as well, but nothing like what you are seeing. With the slowing jetstream the US is expected to have long periods of stagnant weather going forward so 'Feast or famine' temperature and water-wise is supposed to be our 'new normal'.

-David

[Draco]

Last year we had a 100 year event from a storm, a few thousand cars where abandoned when I696 closer to detroit totaly flooded, they had dive teams in the water, so i kinda know how you feel, that storm cause at-lest one death and the damage was not as bad where you are at but was diffidently unusual, they called the great flood of 2014 if i remember right, glad you are ok and house is ok, here many people dont have flood insurance and they lost every thing they had.

[White-Light]

We had a similar thing during a storm last year in the South of the UK - watch especially at 40 secs approx:




..and another one for a couple of years before:



This is a long one but a good one!

Glad to hear you're OK Adam.

[Jem]

Wow! Adam. I've been out of it for a few days and haven't been keeping up with the goings on in the World. Hope you manage to dry out soon.

All the very best from the UK.

Jem

[Draco]

I have a jet ski if you need it it will carry approximately one humanoid dragon and his terrified passenger

it hits 58mphon open water and only weighs 412 pounds with out people on it, now the 4 strokes are cleaner and some are faster due to wither a turbo of a super charger, but one thing i have that they don't is Agility and they have maby 200-400 pounds of extra weight, some can beat me for speed but not much , now i can have more agility so i can beat them on that, a light water craft turns easier. i can stop change direction and course so fast i have been thrown from the machine, it is a fun toy. mine is an older 1996 Seadoo XP , The demand for that hull resulted in the splash series, they are almost 200 pounds heaver and have about 60 horse power, mine has 120, even though it's old it runs great

[buffo]

A Jet-Ski might have proven useful over the weekend! As it was they had the national guard out in large deuce-and-a-half trucks rescuing people from flooded neighborhoods.

Charleston is almost back to normal now. There are a few roads that are still closed due to flooding, and a couple bridges were damaged and will remain closed, but we're doing pretty well considering they are now calling this a 1000-year storm.

The folks in the midlands and upstate regions are not doing nearly as well. Rain is still falling in those areas, and unlike the lowcountry where everything is more or less flat, those areas have hills and valleys. So, of course in the valleys the flooding is catastrophic. I've seen images of buildings with only a portion of the roof showing through the rising floodwaters, with more water still to come. They actually shut down a 70 mile long stretch of I-95 over the weekend! Think about that for a moment: the largest north-south traffic artery on the east coast, and 70 miles of it was out of service for ~ 48 hours. That's some serious shit.

This is almost enough to make me consider moving to Arizona...

Adam

[Stuka]

Glad you and yours are okay Adam!
That's some scary news coming out of your neck of the woods over the last several days!!

[Bradfo69]

This is almost enough to make me consider moving to Arizona...

Ask Karl about compliance first!! You might want to consider a different state.

[DrEvil]

Here's some video and pictures I took around the Sumter area. I was without power and water for a little while Saturday. The road that has been severely damaged is about 3/4 mile from my house.

https://youtu.be/TvJPXilYmTM
https://youtu.be/ZJkO4E0028g
https://youtu.be/k5TFixnBCfI
https://youtu.be/JjA0Px5ZcTY

Pictures
http://imgur.com/a/vMcvp