Noah, we may need your boat

Wellington -- and most of Ohio -- got a lot of rain yesterday.  Wellington got 2.12 inches in 24 hours.  It really came down.

The storm approached from the southwest.

The sky darkened a little more.

And it started to rain. It rained all afternoon and evening and most of the night.

By this morning Mom had several new nearby lakes.

Today Jim and I bailed about 5 good-sized buckets of water out of Mom's basement.  This afternoon I visited with my grade school/junior high/high school friend (and Wellington High School Class of 1969 Salutatorian) Sally.  We hadn't seen each other for two years so we had a lot to catch up on.  While I was at Sally's the second big rainstorm in two days started; it rained so hard there was a river of water going down each side of Sally's street.  And,her power went out.   Since we had a lot to talk about (and her husband, Mike, kept lighting oil lamps and had picked up lunch for us before the rain started) we were fine. Jim was worried, of course, and texted me this message:  "U OK?  Still got power here but running out of beer."

Bev and Sally. You can't see her "boot" in this photo, but Sally is recovering from a broken ankle.

View from Sally's house as the sky opened up once again.  On the news tonight they said today was the 19th consecutive day northern Ohio received measurable precipitation.

The road I took to get to Sally's (Cemetery Road for anyone familiar with Wellington) was nearly flooded -- and that was before the rain started up again this afternoon.  I figured it would be under water when I made the return trip, so I drove via State Route 18 (shown above) which was closed just after the turn to my Mom's place.  Sally and Mike told me Route 18 was "closed at the muck" and I knew just what they meant:  a part of Route 18 that no one has ever figured how to dry out.

As I was driving to Mom's I came to a roughly 40-foot section of her road under water.  A car in front of me turned around and another one tried Cemetery Road.  I said to myself "My dad would have driven through this" and I did.  Later this SUV did the same. 

After today's storm there was just a big bank of clouds headed east.  It almost looked like snow in the mountains instead of clouds rolling east on very flat land. 

By 8 p.m. Wednesday evening it was sunny and calm.