Greetings from Paradise

Posted by Rochelle in Misc. on 08 19th, 2008 | 3 responses

Florida is paradise.  Truly, I love it here in Central Florida.  But paradise comes at a price every now and then.  This past Saturday it was time to pay up.

Early Saturday afternoon we had a typical afternoon storm.  This is normal for summer in Florida, though we have had a massive amout of rain this summer.

As the rain fell and the thunder rumbled  I noticed our new kitten (Woody, named by my husband after the late Woody Hayes) was on our back porch watching the rain drip down the screen.  I ran inside to get my camcorder so I could record how cute this was.  Of course, when I returned with the camcorder he was no longer interested in the rain.  At first I thought he was afraid of the storm.  As you will see, that wasn’t the case.

Here is the video of our cute little kitten tearing it up on our porch:

To be honest,  I doubt anyone will be very interested in the above video.  Nor do I typically share personal videos on my blog.  But my reason for posting this is to show what a difference of a few minutes can make and I thought it was interesting enough to share.

About 15 minutes after I took the above video I noticed all three of our cats sitting on top of the table on our porch.  This was unusual.  I then realized why they were all on the table.  The porch was flooded and they didn’t want to get wet.  We have a cat door but they would have gotten soaked using it.  Instead, they found higher ground.

We have been through several hurricanes but I honestly do not remember our porch flooding like this with any of them.  Nor has it ever flooded from an afternoon storm.  This summer has seen a massive amount of rain and my husband and I learned what happens when the ground is already saturated before a storm hits:

So, I spent the entire rest of the weekend cleaning up this mess.  Before you pity me, know that I actually think this flood on the porch was a good thing. 

As I write this we are being pelted by Tropical Storm Fay.  Fay is moving very slowly, and will be dropping rain on us for at least the next 24 hours.   Had our porch not flooded this past weekend we probably would not have prepared as much as we did for Fay.

It was because of the flooding that we realized what we needed to do (remove what could be removed and covering the rest).  I feel confident that Fay will leave us with little to no damage because we prepared our porch furniture for her arrival.  We would not have been this prepared had we not already dealt with a flood a few days prior.

Allow me one moment to climb up on my soapbox (climbing carefully onto the one near my computer desk).  Each time I renew our flood insurance my husband has balked at it.  But, this is exactly why we pay $100+ a year for flood insurance, even though we are not in a flood zone.  I recommend it for all, regardless of your own flood zone.  (Ok, I’m climbing back down now…)

Hope you all are enjoying your week : )

Rochelle