Hailstorm!

Above is some video from this afternoon's hail storm, as taken on our porch. As this was happening, unbeknownst to us, our basement was flooding slowly. I cam in and happened to go down there, and there was a slight trickle of water, which I thought little of.

When Betty goes down there a few minutes later, the water was starting to pool, and collect around our various things on the floor. Luckily (?) my dirty clothes on the floor sopped up stopped a good amount of the water.

"Where is all of this water coming from?" I ask myself, as I notice this water is essentially, now, FLOWING down the entire back basement wall of the house. So I go out back, amidst the hail and lightning, and see that our two basement window wells, about 10 inches deep, are COMPLETELY filled with water. The thick ass hail had completely covered the drain, and the gallons of water that we falling filled these window wells up QUICK. It had only been raining for about 8-10 minutes, so you tell me.

So I'm out there with a broom, sweeping away, trying to find and clear the drains. I was unsuccessful, at first, and went back after the rain and hail stopped and finally found it. It took about five minutes of monitoring before all the water went down. The amount in the basement was not in any way neglible, but didn't destroy anything too important, if anything at all. Gives me a chance to throw out some clothes, and TRIPLE CLEAN others.

So we took a deep breathe and went back to the front to take a look down towards Market St., which had turned into a river.

It was at this point that Gravy decided to ante up the action a bit, and do something he has never before done. Freaked out from the storm, he BOLTED out the front door and down towards Market St. My heart jumped into my throat, as I envisioned him being hit by one of the cars trudging through the inches of water.

Lucky for me, the freaked out, stupid dog ran onto the porch of the Wilmington Senior Center, where I could corner him and grab his collar. Pulling him back towards the house, he was fighting me pretty hard, and I thought his collar might come off. So as we got towards the steps, where he is always very good and goes up of his own accord, I let go, only to have him take off down the street the other way. He goes right towards this hilarious little dog on our street, who BARKS and BARKS and yelps anytime Betty or I walk down the street. He was about to go out for a walk, but instead got caught up with GRAVY, who was in a barking, yelping, and snipping mood himself.

I apologized and we corralled Gravy back inside with a treat.

BAD DOG!