So Much Water (in which I share about our soggy carpet and soggy city)

Well, well, well. Since I talked about our city’s recent run-in with some water on Friday, I can’t not talk about it again today. Because there’s more to tell. Thankfully, it has not really rained much since then. Less thankfully (in fact, the opposite of thankfully), it still precipitated. Booo. Also, I may have mentioned that we had a bit o’ soggy carpet. So this also happened. When the maintenance guy brought in a huge industrial fan, Ken and I fled the apartment to go to his parent’s house. Which is, incidentally, located on a river. So I investigated, obviously. Believe it or not, in the picture below, there are 6 or 7 more steps that lead to a nice large deck. All of which are completely underwater. Thankfully their house is high atop a hill. Oh, and yes, that’s a crazy kayaker. This river is normally about 15 feet across here and only a few inches deep. Kayaking on it normally is a bit tricky because of all the shallow spots. I estimate that the river volume has quadrupled, but I’m no scientist…I just know there’s a lot more water than there usually is. My parent’s farm has also turned into waterfront property. See my mom’s pictures here, on her blog. As for Grand Rapids, it’s also a bit crazy. Remember this picture I shared on friday? Well, the water has reached the windows.

(Source–and a little more info on the building and how it’s holding up).

Here’s the view from inside. Yes, that’s a fish. No big deal. (Source) Despite all the water and the state of emergency that we’re in, Grand Rapids is still beautiful. The power was cut and the people evacuated from the large building (Plaza Towers) behind the Blue Bridge. (Source) There’s obviously a lot of damage that has occurred (and may still occur). That stinks. Kenny and I are very blessed to not be very affected by this flood. But please pray for the people who are affected. And now. Who else has experienced soggy carpet? It’s a pretty common occurrence around here these days, but I know it’s fairly common all over. What are your crazy flood stories? Interesting articles if you want to read more:

• See how they’re using salt-filled train cars to weigh down a railroad bridge here.
• See why they closed the Fulton Street bridge here.
• Here you can read why officials pumped water into the basement of a downtown condo building.
• They closed the museum carousel (on free admission day!) as a precaution. Read more here.
• Water penetrates the library! I hear the books are okay, though. Here. (ALSO. I wanted to include a Pitch Perfect quote here…but then I thought, “mmm, better not.”)
• Here are aerial photos of the Grand Rapids flood.
• See a bunch of photos from around Grand Rapids (flood and sandbagging efforts) taken on Sunday here.
• Here‘s a picture of how tricky it is to kayak under the Blue Bridge at the moment…
• And finally, here‘s an excellent quote from police re: natural selection and people who do stupid things on the river.

Back to regularly scheduled crafty programming tomorrow. Hopefully. Check back!

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Rain, Rain, Go Away (in which everything is wet)

I may have mentioned that it’s been a bit rainy.

I may not have mentioned just HOW rainy.

Let’s just say that we’ve already exceeded the April rainfall record here in West Michigan with about a bijillion inches already this month (that’s a scientific number).

We have the (usually) good fortune of having a river that runs right through the middle of our city.

Here is Grand Rapids and the Grand River on a normal, nice day.

Image from here.

But not now.

Now the river looks like this.

Normally we have nice walkways along the river. (See the stairs in the pic above?!? See the lightposts below?!? But where is the sidewalk?)

This is the museum and the museum carousel. The water is very nearly touching the carousel. That is not normal.

Also, people live and work in buildings along the river. Like here, in the building to the right.

(Mom, I did not take these photos. I focused on staying high and dry. Photos from Mlive and GRNow.com).

And the worst thing is that the water HASN’T CRESTED YET. (It is supposed to on Monday).

Eeeek.

Also. Ken and Anne left the bedroom window open and may have basically invited a flood into our bedroom….this is not counting in the dining room, where the window remained closed and yet we still have soggy carpet. BOOOOOO.

Stay dry this weekend!