The Carters in Canada: February 2010

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Facets of life in our Hometown

Our Little Town Turns Soggy

During the first two weeks in February we have has almost 600mls of rain. Believe me, this is massive. About half of this fell in about 36 hours last Monday & Tuesday. To put this in perspective, our area only had 460mls of rain for the entire year of 2009. The lakes and waterways were like dustbowls and our shire had less than 20 weeks supply of water left.Consequently, we witnessed flash flooding, lake openings, damage to roads and infrastructure like we have not seen since at least 1999 when we had 13 inches in one day. The Princess Highway was cut by 11.00am on Monday morning and there were serious concerns about how we were going to make it home. Em and I left school in a small convoy around 1.30pm and had to stop in Bodalla (a small town about 17km North of Dalmeny) and wait for several hours until the road temporarily reopened. Once the tide receded we were able to sneak through. We couldn't believe the damage to the highway as we slowly made our way towards home. So much water had come down the creeks in so little time! For the first time ever, school was cancelled on the Tuesday and we were able to stay at home since the road did not reopen until later that morning. I doubt that we will see rain like this again in a hurry. This has been the wettest February since 1911!