And the Rains Came Down.....

House just outside of the town I work in. This entire valley was flooded, when normally there is a little trickle creek that runs just to the right in the picture. This was about two hours after the storm left the area. I had never seen this house flood.

This is the Niangua River--not at full flood level yet, but overflowing it's banks. I'm sure it got much higher overnight, as I could hear it roaring from the house. (I live in a horseshoe bend area of the river, but it's about a mile and half from my house).

My Mom took this picture out their backdoor. This is their back yard, which is a slight slope and by no means a 'low water' area. There was a pretty good river running downhill.

This weekend is the Fiber Fest--the truck is loaded and I think I'm ready.... I hope it will be a successful weekend. It's been a busy week, trying to get all the fiber and promotional items ready.

It's suppose to rain tonight--maybe more violent storms, but I hope not. It is calling for rain in the early a.m. tomorrow and cool temperatures in the 60s. Fortunately the event is located under livestock pavilions, so that helps immensely.

I mentioned before that we had a crazy storm system move through last Friday. It came mid-morning and lasted for what seemed hours, but was more like 45 minutes. This particular storm type even has a name---Derecho. It's described as 'a long lived thunderstorm induced windstorm'...really. What it looked like was a mini hurricane, with rain and wind swirling and blowing every which way. The storm that blew in on Friday caused wide spread wind damage, with an estimated 17 tornado reports, straight wind and damaging hail. One person was killed near here when he and his wife were sucked out of their home and thrown into a field.

I was at work when it hit, and the sirens went off. We grabbed our purses, radio, flashlight and other worthy things and trundled off to an inner room located on the lower floor. Sadly we weren't in a hurry and even after landing in the 'safe' room, we roamed about looking out windows, and in my case procuring a better radio from the office--and while at it setting up the copier to run 500 more copies. Just in case we didn't get wiped out by the tornado. Only later did we realize how severe the storms were. I had my camera with me but did not even think to take pictures of the wind and rain and the flood waters encroaching on the office behind ours. The sirens went on and on and on. As in the last time the sirens went off, we had people 'wander in' from off the streets to wait out the storm with us.

On the way home I snapped a couple of pictures but they aren't that impressive. We had about 3 to 3.5 inches of rain in about 45 minutes. I have not 'in all my born days' as they say, seen the water rise that fast. There were rivers in the roads, lakes in the housing developments, water where there had never been flood problems before. It was freaky.

Buzzards drying out

I was very thankful that we all made it through the storms, as well as having no property damage. It looked like I had a little 'river run through' my breezeway and some overflow into the kitchen, but it was minor.


When I got home I noticed something 'funny' about the empty house across the street. At first I thought the chimney had been damaged, but a closer inspection showed it was two vultures or buzzards perched on the chimney. I suppose they were trying to dry out, but I have a little hope that they may be nesting in one of the abandoned buildings. That would be pretty cool.

In the evening I started to get something from the cloths hamper and noticed a dark blob on the arm of my office chair. Hmmm...that sure looks like a toad. And it was! I'm not sure how it got in, but I figure it had something to do with all the rain and flooding confuing the little critter. I threw a little rag over it and turned it outside. No house toads, please.

Stranded Toad

The ground is super spongy and soft here and hasn't had a chance to dry out. I had to laugh when I saw on the news tonight that we are going to have an 'extended dry period'....all of three days long that is.

Have a great weekend!