The Rain is Relentless!

I seriously have never witnessed this much rain in my life. For the last two and a half days, it has heavily rained and rained and rained (Ben joked yesterday that we might need an ark if this continues). You can't really tell in this picture, but our backyard is one squishy, mushy, area of grass and mud. Our grass is the greenest it's been since we moved in.

We have several friends with inches of water in their basements and have seen lots of houses in this area with ruined carpet out on the curb. Our water problems seem so minor in comparison - Ben fixed our basement water problems yesterday by covering the window wells with tarps and boxes, and so far it's keeping things under control.

It doesn't usually rain like this here. Sure, we have big storms. Spring is a wet season. But I have never experienced a September this wet. Thankfully it's supposed to be dry tomorrow. In the meantime, parks have newly-formed ponds, streets are full of inches of water, parts of the highways are closed, and towns around Chicago in a state of emergency because of rivers overflowing and houses flooding.

Since when is Chicago affected by hurricanes? (I guess now it's a "tropical depression") Good luck Canada... it's headed your way.

It's Wet Here too

I've been following a lot of the Hurricane Ike news and feeling so sad about all of the destruction. Chicago is getting hit with a ton of rain, obviously not comparable to what's happening in Galveston or Houston, but I took some pictures this morning to show how much rain we've had in the last few hours. Here are some cars driving in front of our house:

In the meantime, we've discovered our basement is not as waterproof as the sellers alleged it to be. Ben is outside in the torrential rain trying to block off our window wells because they are filling up with water and causing problems. Fun fun. I guess it's a good thing the tile guy kept flaking on me this week after all, because we don't have anything over the cement at the moment.

We're supposed to get more heavy rain through today and then again tomorrow, in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. It makes me want to stay inside and not go anywhere!