FLOODING!

If you listen to the new you might have heard about the flooding in Alberta! Let me explain a few things.

We live in a dessert area. Yes we have grass and wheat, and prairie, but we do not normally receive a lot of rain. Rain here lasts for 5 minutes and is gone. It really surprised us to learn that a typical thunder storm is one , maybe two rumbles of thunder.

The last time it flooded our here, they received three days of rain in a row.
We have just recovered from 1 1/2 weeks of rain, with 3 days of "Heavy Rain Warnings", and a thunderstorm that lasted 1/2 hour. There was even funnel clouds spotted, but no reports of damage. Here in Magrath we received 9 inches of rain. In the mountains they received 12 inches of rain.

This might not be too much of an issue, if you are used to this, but our ground doesn't soak up that much moisture, and our rivers are NEVER that full! Our houses are not designed for that much water either. Many of us had water in the basement, new and old basements, or water coming through the ceiling in a places that never had problems before. The school was closed because water was building up on the roof and wasn't draining.

Our sewers we sooo full that they were pumping water out of all the old sewers surrounding the town with big tractors, and piping it towards the middle of town, tot he new sewer systems that they are still constructing, before the rain started.

The sewers were backing up into people houses so we were also put on water restriction for 3 days. This is were we could only flush sparingly, and no baths, showers, laundry, or dishwashers were to be used.

We did have water in our basement, but thankfully the only think down there was our furnace and the waterheater. We did have trouble with the furnance, and Daddy had to go down and fix it a few mornings, to give us so heat in the house. The hard part was getting through the 6 inches of water in the basement entrance.

Everything is fine now, and so many people were outside today, enjoying the sunshine!