so i’m currently in Valparaiso, Indiana, hanging out at my aunt’s house.

well, kinda, at the moment i’m sitting in the car, soaking wet, on the laptop because the power is out…

how did i end up in the car?

well…

first we drove back to my aunt’s house…

then we heard the tornado warnings and the sirens go off and the wind pick up…

and up…

and up…

and up…

all the while the rain is falling harder and harder…

within 10 minutes, this was the street out front…

people are stupid…

i’m in shorts… standing in the middle of the street, this is about 20 minutes into it…

that’s a trash can on it’s side, sucked down against the storm drain…
there are only two on this street, one on each side, and they are your basic 12″ pipe. they move a *lot* of water, and the suction is immense…

deep enough that it’s climbing driveways now…

30 minutes in, far side of the dip, the van won’t start…
(already pushed out two other cars)

and the water rises…

and rises…

…at this point we are frantically pulling debris out of the storm drain grates, of which there are only two, and they are deeper than “arms reach with your head above water”, and it’s a matter of “use one hand to pull crap out, while using the other hand and both feet to keep yourself from getting sucked into it, while holding your breath”…

yeah, not fun.

there we go…

of course, the water is *still* rising…

this one is finally cleared by yours truly…

water isn’t receding, but it’s not getting deeper either… look at the size of that whirlpool…

here’s both…

took 2 hours to drain after the rain stopped…
power is still out.
running my laptop off the inverter in the car…

never a dull moment 🙂
-stone

addendum:
so a bunch of people asked me “what did it look like in the morning?”

the answer is, of course, “just like any suburban street” … for the rest of you who asked, here’s a picture of the drains…

and here’s a closeup of the one i cleared out…

-stone