Hey! We're Flooded Here, Too!

Despite national reporting, serious flooding occured north of Tennessee.

This as a photo of our downtown area Monday (I think).  The water started rising Sunday.  Lucky for me, I had an appointment to have my most recent BIG piece photograhed in Cincinnati.  Normally this is 1 1/2 hour drive; Sunday it took twice that long because, no matter which way I went, I was blocked by some official vehicle (the most amusing was a city garbage truck), and forced to backtrack 3 or 4 miles to try another route.  I saw a lot of the countryside in the hour and a half it took me to get 15 miles to I-75.

Before I started my trek, my DH, Terry, checked our walk-in crawlspace and proclaimed it dry.  This was good because three years we had our back yard renovated to divert water away from the house. How did we initally find our water problem?  We would run out of hot water (the water heater is gas and the pilot light would, uh, drown).  By the time the water heater was out, the crawlspace would be dry; we thought it was a fluke that the pilot would be extinguished.  It seemed to happen during a storm, so we thought it was the wind .  We finally had a plumber in to fix whatever was causing the extinguishing.  "Uh, sir" the professional asked with a smirk,"do you see that line (about a foot from the ground) that is on everything?  You've had a lot of water down here."

I digress.  I returned from Cincinnati late (at least I knew to take the longer, drier, way back), exhausted, anticipating a lovely, hot shower.  I hopped in and EEEK!  Coldcoldcoldcoldcold!  Once again (this time we saw it for ourselves), we had our own personal flood.  Sometime in the previous 12 hours the sump pump stopped pumping and the water heater drowned.  Happily, the water went away by noon Monday, DH lit the pilot light and all was well by the time I came home from work. 

Boy-oh-boy, I am so spoiled; one cold shower and I'm whining.  There are millions on this planet that don't have food or shelter.  Color me thankful.