The crazy storm!

Last week we had a crazy storm... but let me back up.  Last summer we had some crazy storms!  Last July while we were on vacation it rained so hard that it overflowed the alley near us, came down the alley right for our house and flooded it.  Twice.  Well, the second time we were home thankfully!  My brother-in-law lent us his big shop fans and carpet cleaning machine.  We got on the HOA right away to try to solve the problem.  Nothing really happened until about May when they fixed the sidewalk area at the end of the alley.  Then just a few weeks ago they put brick and gravel behind the sidewalk - just in case.  Little did we know it would be put to the test so soon!  After quite a bit of monsoon rain this year we had a CRAZY storm last week!  As usual it got stormy in the afternoon.  The kid thought it was fun that there was ice cube rain (hail).  There was quite a bit on our lawn so I took a picture.  Well, a few hours later after the rain cleared and the sun was shining I peaked out the door.  There was a lake at the end of our cul-de-sac.  I called Caleb and he assured me that it meant the detention pond was doing it's job.  Then I took the kids to the other end of the street, to our cross street.  Yikes!  It was a river!  The water was running so much that it covered the entire sidewalk between our street and the next, and I'm sure further than that!  Thank the Lord the HOA fixed the sidewalk!  It did overflow but not NEARLY what it would have done last year.  We surely would have gotten flooded.  So here are some pictures of the fantastic aftermath.  If you look up our local newspaper you can see photos much worse of the neighborhood just north of us up the hill.  Apparently, they got several FEET of hail!

The lake at the end of our cul-de-sac.  That is hail floating there.

The river covering the sidewalk.  That truck is parked next to the sidewalk.  Again, all that white stuff is hail.

You can see where it overflowed and headed down the alley.  Thankfully it didn't get anywhere near our house this time!

Flowing over the bricks that are a somewhat barrier to the alley.