underwater...

... seriously inundated, is my street. It rained so much today, it is not possible to get through from where my street starts on Macon Road to my house. Probably not surprising when you consider my phone buzzed this morning at 2:34 a.m.,with a warning from the National Weather Service. Notifying about the likelihood of flash-floods in low lying areas, places that historically do not drain well when the rainfall is overwhelming. Remember those aerial photos, possibly taken with drones of what the neighborhoods looked like last summer when Houston was swamped by a hurricane? If we did not live at the top of a hill: that would be us.

One one side of the rural street it is wooded, private property where the creek runs from behind our house, meandering down the hill and under the road. On the other side of the street is a public golf course, where there are several man-made watershed lakes, that impound the water as it flows through. Apparently the lakes got too full from all the excess rainfall, and it would not drain out to go back into the creek as it passes under the four-lane to eventually empty into the Chattahoochee River down near Ft. Benning. This is the third time this has occurred since we have been living in this house, a little less than forty years. Which says to me, that rather than it being what planners call 'a one-hundred-year flood', it happens often enough to occur at ten year intervals.

The Man Who Lives Here apparently thinks I am so dim I would not see the big orange barrels or cones blocking the street, to know it was impassable. Assuming I would simply skirt around the big wooden barricade with red reflective stripes and blissfully go charging down into the waist deep deluge. He had to call me twice while I was driving back from south Georgia to give a report. Once to warn me that there water over the road. And a second time to inform me it was not safe to travel, be prepared for a detour as it was too deep for small vehicles (me!) to safely maneuver.


I was hoping to get home from my travels in time to go and take photos to share. While I was down near the place that is a temporary swamp, another car pulled up. The young man got out and asked how deep it is. I replied that it was too deep for his BMW. He said 'really?' I said it would not be too deep for a large truck with big tires. But I was pretty sure he did not want to have to explain why he drove around the barricades, barrels and cones, only to have to wade out and to call for a tow truck.

If you look closely, right here, near the bottom edge of the photo, you can see the yellow center line painted on the asphalt of the street. Which tells you that the muddy water has been standing on the road long enough for much of the silt to settle to the bottom, there where it is fairly shallow. It flows in from the left side of the picture, from a densely wooded area, with nothing to stop the creek water.  The creek would normally run under the road a bit past that big utility pole, with the public golf course on the right side of the street. There are several lakes, that are meant to hold and slow the flow of water, being 'hazards' for golfers. But as you see, there is a 'water hazard' right out in the middle of the street! The lakes have surely overfilled their normal boundaries, and likely covered the cart paths, as well as some of the greens, closing the course until the bountiful waters recede.