Seriously Mother Nature -- ENOUGH

Mother Nature - do you hate us? Heaven knows, my comments about you and how you roll in Ohio have not always been, shall we say, kind, over the years. I am willing to apologize...or even repent, if necessary.
But seriously, this is getting old.

As if one ice storm a few weeks ago wasn't enough...you sent two. Just when we managed to dig out the driveway to the point of seeing pavement again...you sent snow.

And more snow.

And more snow. (see post below.)

And then it rained.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that 3 inches of rain, on top of 8-12 inches of snow on top of frozen and saturated ground...well that just doesn't make for a pretty picture.

And that is exactly what happened last weekend.

It seemed almost surreal to be awakened to lightening flashing in my bedroom in the middle of the night in February. The wind was howling and we a full blown thunderstorm brewing...right after the blizzard that we'd had a week ago Friday. Then when Addysen woke me up to say that school had been canceled again...this time to due severe flooding...well, I didn't know what to think.

Actually, my first thought was that the board of education people must have lost their minds. And then I went outside. As we drove around, I quickly changed my tune. Entire yards were under water. Cars were stuck and roads were closed. As we drove around, we concluded that school was closed because a) the schools got water in them or b) the buses couldn't get down many of the roads because of so much water.

As it turned out, both scenarios were true. The Middle School had 4-5 inches of water in the basement and school was canceled for two days. The highschool parking lot was under water. The street in front of the bus garage had up to 4 feet of water and people had to be taken out of their homes by boat. As we drove around -- in shock at the amount of water - - Greg said, "has anyone been in our basement today?"

We were lucky. No water for us. Many ward members weren't so lucky. Through the amazing process that is the church organization, we quickly identified 6 families which had been flooded - -anywhere from 4 inches to 3+ feet of water. One families entire neighboorhood was under water to various degrees. Some people had to deal with sewer back up as well. Talk about a mess.

So, we spent the week helping where we could...and making mental notes:
*Clean out the basement
*Throw away a bunch of STUFF
*Put the important things in plastic bins and up high (several of these families have been flooded before...and even had their stuff up high and in plastic bins...but they didn't have their stuff 2 feet off the ground...who plans for that much water?)
*Call the insurance company to find out exactly what our coverage is-- most of the flooding this week didn't happen in flood zones.

It shouldn't take a tragedy to put some of these thoughts into actions...and yet...

In light of the events of the past week, did we really have to wake up today to more SNOW?

Mother Nature, how about a break?

I mean, after all...this is Cleveland and we're still reeling from The DECISION.