Lee Flood

As electric as those first school days are, nothing compares to the first snow day, or inclement weather early dismissal. And I have to admit, I am THAT teacher. The one who sends one of her students down to her desk to check WNEP on snowy mornings to see if "Wyalusing Area School District...dismissing @ 12:30pm" is running across the local news site. I'm also THAT teacher who instantly tells all of the kids. A lot of school staff like to keep it under wraps to minimize behavior issues, but not me. I'm hoping my enthusiasm over the little things like this will keep me young.

And so, standing in the hall outside of my classroom between 2nd and 3rd periods on Wednesday, I caught one of my french horn players in the hall and she said "it's raining so hard...can I check WNEP?!" (it's sad when by the time they're seniors they don't even need to be asked), but before she could even pull up the site, the announcement was made on the loud speaker that we'd be dismissing at 12:30. The excitement of the first day of school and the first early dismissal all coming in eight days is kind of like being born to a Christmas celebrating family on December 26th.

I blame my karma in the four days that followed that early dismissal on my immature excitement in getting out of my fourth day of school early. I was excited. And I was smug. I took on a co-teacher's study hall duty to let her beat road conditions and get home, and stayed until every last student was bussed away or picked up by family, saying to everyone "oh, it's no problem. I only live in Camptown. I just need to turn my sump pump on at some point today I'm sure."

The plans I made for my afternoon on my drive home were fantastic. I would plug in the sump pump, go for a long rainy run, bake cookies, and then go back to the school and try to finish up the piles of music filing I'd been working on. I'd even get home in time to get a long bike ride in on the trainer! Having slept in past a morning run, looking at a full school day and after school band practice, I was having stress about just getting a run in. My training was literally saved by the possibility of flash flooding!

My day dream was interrupted a mile from home when flares and flaggers warned me to go slowly through water rushing across the road. But it was still the typical flash flood conditions What was not typical was the scene I came on a quarter mile from my house. There was a river rushing across what had been the road to our street. Realizing quickly that I couldn't drive through it, I tried taking a second side street in. The side street was not only equally impassable, but gave me a view of our street. Or what had been our street when I'd left that morning. It was now nothing but fast rushing brown water. No grass. No road. No driveways. Just lots of fast moving, rushing, gushing, brown water.

The view down the street I take to get home.

The gas station at the corner of our street.

The rest of the day became a bit of a chaotic blur. Trying to get ahold of Mike, whose school hadn't called off in time stranding faculty and students in the building overnight (Mike thankfully made it home that afternoon). Getting cut off with my mom on her cell phone only to have her show up on my doorstep (err, creek?) as far as a friendly neighbor could get her in his big truck after she abandoned her car in flood waters in Wysox (rip Volvo). Standing with our neighbors in the rushing water where our driveways once were comparing notes on how deep the water in our respective basements had become hour by hour.

Views from our front porch Wednesday afternoon.

But consuming most of the day was the breaker box. What happens if you don't "disarm" the breaker box, and it becomes submerged in flood water. The first question in my experience to stump google. All the world wide web had to offer was "don't let that happen". And so, at 11pm, when the water became high enough that it pushed the basement door open and was running fast and furious down the basement steps, we gave up the ghost of keeping the water below the box, unplugged everything in the house, and waited for the answer. And...nothing.

I fell asleep on the couch. Woke up at 1:30 am to see that the basement was filled to the rafters, and still...nothing. We didn't have water, but we had electric. Sleep was touch and go on the living room couches, but Thursday morning we woke to water slowly receding, a basement full to the brim, and perfectly working electric. Go figure. In the event our experience was freak or extremely lucky, I don't think I'll be posting any "nothing to worry about! You can dunk that thing in water all you want!" threads online, but I can't begin to express how thankful I am that we have had power all week.

Speaking of being thankful, having electric Thursday meant having facebook and television Thursday, which meant access to pictures of our sad town and neighboring towns. Homes that would typically deal with a little water in the basement, flooded well into their second story. Businesses flooded to the rafters, roads completely gone, walls caved in from the pressure of the water. Here we sit, four days after it stopped raining, with water still seeping into our basement, but I'll take it without complaint. At least we're sitting in our house. Too many people around us can't say that tonight.

The gas station across the road from my high school Thursday afternoon

As for that long run and trainer ride I was fantasizing about Wednesday afternoon? Suffice it to say, Wednesday (and Thursday, Friday, Saturday) was chalked up what I'm deeming "flood control cross training". And though I've gotten a little time in on the indoor trainer and a few muddy miles running in between mud slopping, hosing, picking, garbaging, gross etc..., that early dismissal that became the rest of the week, most certainly did not bode well for my training. It did, however, make me thankful for those crazy "normal" school days when fitting in one workout, much less two, seems impossible. And I'm really looking forward to getting rid of all of the mud, seeing my town come back to life, and enjoying a long school year of crazy, normal days.